My fourth life was a mystery 

I'm not sure how long or even how I lived.  My death, a complete blank. 

I realized that I was looking up at the needles of a Phantom Tree, with no idea how I had got here. 

-Wait, what happened? I sure I died, er, lived. 

“Did I?”-Me 

I lifted my head and looked around, then checked out my hair colour. It remained long and very red. 

“Well, that hasn’t changed.”-Me 

The Phantom Forest was slightly different from the ones that I had awoken in before. Tall fir trees towered above, while the forest floor was much sparser, with few phantom shrubs and grasses. I sat up and checked out the rest of my body.  

“There isn’t much grey dust around, as expected.”-Me 

-Hey wait a minute, “expected”? and why am I not surprised? 

I wasn’t surprised because I knew why there was little to no extra grey dust, I just had to re-remember it. 

“Right, I removed those memories before….”-Me 

I shook my head. 

-@#$% this is confusing, having memories that I don’t remember having. 

“I never thought that I’d say this, but I think I miss the head ache I usually get”-Me 

With the thought about the head ache, and specifically it’s cause, I “remembered” a flood of new information. At some time in my last life, I had learned Mind Magic, which lead to the discovery that I had seriously damaged mine. Having multiple lives stuffed into my skull was bad enough, but add on the foreign memories from the soul beads I had consumed had done some damage in critical parts. It was very likely that I would have soon been driven insane, or worst, had my mind completely cave in, leaving me an empty shell.  

-I thought that the personality merge that happened when I awoke in the after-life was enough. Seems like I was just wishful thinking. 

I concentrated on following the “memory” around learning Mind Magic. It seems that I fixed most of the problems, but then hit a hard limit, the rest of the damage was beyond my mind. It was part of my soul, and Soul Magic was more commonly referred to as Necromancy. 

“Oh hell. Please tell me I wasn’t messing with corpses.”-Me 

Necromancy was generally viewed as forbidden magic, practiced only by the most evil and depraved, but even so I was able to learn enough to fix the damage before I returned here to the after-life.  

-It doesn’t seem like I ended up as an evil boss villain, or a Lich.  

“But It seems I got to learn real magic this time!”-Me 

The wide grin spreading across my face, suddenly froze in place. 

“I got to learn real magic, and I can’t remember any of it!!!”-Me 

I frantically tried to remember anything more than Mental or Soul magic. 

-Nothing? What the hell did I do in my last life!! 

“Muk!”-Me 

-….. That was elvish, I speak elvish?! 

I slumped back to the ground and just stared up at the phantom trees again. I lay, my mind blank in denial, till a small flock of birds flew past. My eyes followed their flight till I noticed something on a nearby branch. I focused on the odd bump till I realised it was a squirrel. It was staring at me with a covetous gleam in its eyes. 

“Shoo tree rat! I’m not going to be your next treasure.”-Me  

I stood up, and dusted off my suit, then stuck my tongue out at the now chittering, offended rodent. 

-Maybe I should start thinking about how I’m going to make sure I don’t end up in a squirrel cache.  

I focused inward, and was relieved to see my crystal core solar system was there. The magicicle disk around the core was dense and smooth, if not that large.  

The cyclones above, and below the core seemed to be thicker, and much more compact. They also had taken on more of a smooth texture, less like a sand storm, and more like a water spout. The whisps of fog like liquid magicicle had become distinctive and formed a cloud layer surrounding the core. 

 I moved my focus past the hazy cloud layer towards my spinning crystal core. Its surface was now completely smooth and somewhat larger. 

-Wait, the surface is not solid. The core is coated in liquid magicicle! 

A thick layer of jewel like clear fluid had encased the spinning crystal. It seemed to get thicker, and take on a darker hue the closer it got to the surface of the crystalline core. 

-I'll have to study this closer later. The “planets” also seem to be doing fine, maybe even more than fine. 

The marble that I suspected was from my Fairy friend had taken on a misty atmosphere of gaseous magicicles. 

-These ones feel different from normal magicicles. They feel “clear” and light, like air. I guess this marble filters out, or maybe converts neutral magicicles into “Air” magicicles? Airicles?  

There are now dozens of clearly separated bands in the accretion disk where the “planet” passed in its orbit. 

-These rings are the usual neutral magicicles, but it feels like she has sorted them by spin? 

It seems that my magicicle perception had become slightly more refined as I could clearly tell that the seemingly identical bands of magicicles, were in fact subtly different. When I looked at different part of the disk, although it looked smooth, I could tell that it was a mess of magicicles with differing spins. 

I moved my focus over to the other marble “planet” orbiting my crystalline core. My little Slime buddy was trailing a long line of glittery gold particles, a much thicker line from just before the “Bonzi Incident”. The gold had the same hue as the gold specks left after processing a raw zapped marble. 

-Is it the same as the gold ribbon, and why is it trailing my slime friend’s core? I have to figure out if all this gold is coming in when I re-charge, or he’s filtering it out of the marbles I have been eating. 

“Yet more mysteries left over from my blank life.”-Me 

As I was tracing the glittery gold tail, a glint from further “out system”.  As I focused on the glint an odd, taper ended spindle shaped cloud was revealed. I looked past the dense fuzzy magicicle cloud. 

-Oh, it is my drill, or at least what is left of it. 

The drill was is rough shape, its surface pitted and gouged in long criss-crossing trails over the entire length.  

-This must be the result when it was exposed to the full stream of magicicles when I broke open the phantom bonsai. - 

I examined the surface in as much detail as I could, interested to see how the crystalline structure held up, and how it broke down. 

-Ok. Before we get to side tracked, the drill will, um probably, work, and I should probably refill on magicicles before something comes along and tries to eat me 

I looked around the sparce underbrush for a suitably sized phantom bush that I could tap. Due to the lack of larger grasses, I ended up choosing a bush slightly larger than I was truly comfortable with. Its main advantage was the large thorns that I could use to pierce through my skin. 

-I keep saying this, but I really have to find a better way of doing this. 

Looking around for any dangerous fauna, I eyed a small green frog that was clinging to a tree nearby. The unassuming amphibian chirped then jumped towards me. I jerked and ducked to the side when it unfurled a set of leathery wings and glided past me, then frantically tried flapping it wings to avoid ramming into a tree. A very small de-rez rewarded its efforts. 

-Guess that it had a magic assisted flight that doesn't work on this side. 

I again looked around, and up, I wasn’t going to be surprised by any more kamikaze frogs. Smiling at the visual animation of a cartoon frog tying a rising sun bandana on its forehead that was running through my head, I snorted, and impaled my hand on one of the thorns. Then realized I had forgotten a step. 

-Oh, An all i nír gods! Maybe you should have moved the drill into place before you impaled yourself, you dolt!  And why the Elvish again? 

I started to pushing the battered drill through my inner space and back into my right hand, then started the process of spinning it up. It didn’t take long to become apparent that the drill was not going to work as it quickly started to spall, spinning on a weirdly shifting axis. 

-That’s kind of an odd spiral. Ok add that to the list of things to study, but in the meantime, it seems we are going to have to do this the original way. - 

It seems that my electrical abilities had also received a boost during my last life as finding the ‘key’ to breaking through the phantom thorns shell came relatively easy compared to previous attempts. A surprisingly large stream of magicicles blew out of the ripped open thorn, flooding into me. I started firing off random neon blue bolts worried that I might burst before the broken thorn finally crystalized over. 

I noticed my finger nails had taken on the crazed spider web pattern again, as I watched the electrical burns and the thorn puncture, close up. 

-Hmm I wonder if the gold from my slime buddies core acts the same as the flecks in the marbles? Maybe I can use some of that gold glitter and form conductors in my nails? - 

My contemplation was cut short by the sound of a screech, and the sound of racing steps. I spun towards the sound to see a pack of goblins madly dashing towards me, their tooth ache inducing, off key war cries matching their contorted features. I smiled. 

“You guys will do.”-Me 

I pointed my hands towards the oncoming targets. 

-Let's see how much I’ve improved. 

Light strobed and the phantom trees glowed a deadly deep electrical blue. 

…. 

I walked for a significant length of time, trying out various forms of my lightning bolts and air bombs on any of the unfriendly critters along the way. So far, my favorite was running a braided leader down into the ground, then up through the target and into the sky. The resulting deep purple bolt had completely broken the Ork that I had used it on. The Ork had just exploded into a cloud of grey/silver dust, even the scattered black sludge had been zapped into sliver glitter by the residual charge left by the originating bolt. 

Similar to the roads, there was a network of lines, or streams, of the heavy, ground based magicicles that gave my electrical bolts the distinctive purple hue. 

-I guess I should call them Groundiciles? Earthicles? Terracles? Ceven-reath? Ok this elvish thing is going to be a problem. Terracles you have been named. 

As I continued along, the ground slowly rose up, till I finally broke from the forest. I was left standing on the peak of a steep rocky incline down into a large wide river below. The horizon was a sea of phantom forest, dominated by a single massive tree that rose above the others, breaking the light into ribbons of dark and bright lines. 

“Amar Galadhon!”-Me 

-It's certainly large, and impressive enough to be a world tree.  

I sat on a convenient rock and stared out over the vast scenery, content to just be for a bit. 

-I feel, um lighter, cleaner. I think that mental cleaning did a lot. I wonder if I purged memories, or fucked with my personality. 

I contemplated what I “knew” about mind magic. Mind magic came in several varieties, which I “remember”. The simplest and most common was illusion, which used vision and sound to affect the targets state. Good for confusion, nausea, and in a more subtle use, miss direction. Not really that useful for doing the work that I needed done. 

Telepathic magic was much more useful, and ramped up in complexity quickly. It also had great potential, for both abusive and advantageous purpose. Communication from mind to mind was the most basic use of this study, expanded to include multiple parties, or to extreme distances. More difficult was reading emotions or surface thoughts, but even then, required a little willpower on the part of the caster. Probing deeper than surface thoughts required the caster to exert greater force of will, overcoming the targets resistance. Drugs and the setting could, of course, have a large impact on the will of the target. Both in combination with illusion used when more work needed to be done. Memories, normal, suppressed or just forgotten, could be accessed or altered. Suggestions could be implanted, emotions enhanced or deadened. In extreme cases the target could even be puppeted. Telepathic magic had a glaring fault though, namely the time limit. Any suggestions made, memories altered, emotions controlled, would all return to their original state. The larger the change, the greater the will would all shorten the time that any changes would last. This is probably because you were not actually altering the brain’s structure, just blocking, or changing the perception of the target memories, emotions, or thought patterns. 

Mentat magic was similar in technique to Telepathy but was entirely focused on the caster’s own mind. Eidetic memory was the hall mark of the Mentat master. Emotional control, heightened senses, perfect pitch, lightening calculations, were all achievable to the student of Mentat magic. But all these advantages came with risk. A moment of inattention, a fumbled or incomplete spell, or even a moment of self-loathing could destroy the Mentat’s mind. Being left as a functional doll, with little to no will, would be the best-case outcome. 

The last type that I could “remember” was the most disturbing. Mind surgery. Cutting open the subject and directly altering the brain. 

At this point I stopped trying to recall any more information. 

-Surgery in a medieval setting is disturbing enough, but the amount of experimentation that would be required to learn what you were doing. Do I want to know what I did? How far I went? I haven't even got to Soul/Necromantic magic yet. Could I have purposely erased my last life to forget the horror that I became? 

I sat, running my thumb along the bridge of my nose, thoughts racing around in my mind. Did I create these magics, or were they already being studied. Was I forced or enslaved and used by evil kings or shadow organizations, or was I a rogue solitary researcher like a Dr. Frankenstein. A celebrated brilliant genius, or hunted diabolical fiend.  

- I think I might be casting myself as too much of a MC in my speculation. I honestly don’t think I’d turn into a grave robbing, homeless child kidnapping, abomination creating mad scientist. And I won’t know for certain unless I recall everything. 

Mind Surgery turned out to be way less horrid than I had imagined. It was incredibly complex study involving many other types of magic. Bio sculpting, incredibly fine Telekinesis, micro scale Sensing magic, Alchemy, Chemister magic, and more. It was the magical equivalent of nero-surgery, where magic allowed you not only to see into, but like a ghost, reach into and manipulate the brain down to the structures of a neuron. Not only could you fix problems like tumors, seizures or abnormalities, you could repair or even replace parts lost from diseases or strokes. At the highest level of complexity, you could do things that sounded like they were straight out of science fiction. Adding whole new parts to control the extra limbs or wings you have grafted on. Add enchanted devices that could mimic Mentat powers or allow you to cast certain spells. Enhance neural feedback, visual / auditory acuity, increased adrenal functions, advanced muscle memory, all achievable. It also had its darker applications. Permanently changing personality, removing the parts that controlled magic or natural abilities, placing enchanted slave devices, or just removing the parts that were responsible for will and free thought. 

The amount of information, theory, technique, and practical experience was over whelming. Now my head was really starting to hurt. 

-I knew that there would be head-ache somewhere after a new death. But wow! To know all of that from one life I must have been incredibly busy, and I haven’t even looked a soul magic yet! 

I heard a faint noise from the forest behind me and pushed magicicles trough my ear tips twisting into a large plane of linked air to either side of my head. The two planes amplified sound which allowed me to locate its source. 

-I did that without really thinking about what I was doing. This mystery life is really screwing with me. 

From the sounds collected by my air magic, I was guessing that something, really tall and biped was trying to quietly sneak between the unmoving phantom trees. Something that was still at least 40 meters away and sneaking in my direction. I remained seated but raised both hands and started to twist magicicles. 

-Now I get to try out an idea that my air magic wasn’t skilled enough before. 

I pushed a leader from my right hand down into the stream of terracles that flowed along the ridge line, then out towards the sound behind me. Above my left a wispy grey ball started to form, sheading a significant amount of heat. As I increased the volume and pressure of gas in the ball, moisture was squeezed out with the heat created by the compression. 

-Interesting example of some basic physics aside, this is getting hard. This would be easier if I learned a heat twist, but then there is the whole damaging my mind thing. Let's hope this is enough. 

I stood turned and threw the spinning misty ball. It landed at the feet of a 3 meter plus tall gaunt humanoid. With a deafening thump the gas ball exploded outward, blowing up a huge cloud of grey dust and hammering the creature enough to cause it to stumble back a step. Its howl sounded like a group of women lamenting the dead. As it recovered its balance, it looked at me with a spreading grin across its ghastly face. 

-A Wright, or Wendigo maybe? You may be smiling because you think I missed, but your very wrong. 

“Medi- ast, mother @#$%er!” 

I ran the leader up from the ground, through the creature and into the sky. Then I twisted the magic in my right hand. The resulting violet bolt was instantly followed by a massive roiling redish yellow concussive wave that knocked me back off the ridge line. 

“Owwww.”-Me 

I finally stopped rolling down the hill in a heap that should only be possible in a really intimately competitive game of Twister. 

“That.”-Me  

I managed to twitch and drag my arm out from under me. 

“Was.”-Me  

I pulled my leg out from where it was wedged between two large rocks. 

“A.”-Me 

I managed to twist my torso back the facing the same direction as my hips. 

“Bad.”-Me  

I kind of fish flopped myself over and onto my back 

“Idea!”-Me 

I could now move my head enough to look up the ruble rock hill. I slowly worked on getting my fingers straightened out as I watched to see if the monster survived and if it was going to seek revenge. Nothing appeared over the ridge edge as I painfully worked at realigning the broken parts of my body. 

-Did I ragdoll or slinky my way down that slope? 

I shook my head at the irrelevant thoughts, and slowly stood up.  

-Should I go check? 

Pictures of a half burnt, half melted ghast/wendigo thing roaring and biting down on my head made the decision for me. 

“Better part of Valor and all that.”-Me 

I turned to the river and headed towards the massive phantom tree. 

….. 

I stood, stunned, on the edge of a small lake that sat at the foot of the massive phantom tree. The tree’s roots created steps and darkened burrows, jumbled together and down into the water. It rose high into the air, where pale glowing beads swirled amongst the branches, giving the impression that it was wrapped in twinkling holiday lights. The trunk of the tree facing the lake had the sharp-edged crystalline bark that healed over a break in the phantom forests surface. The lake was shaped like a cone pointed at the tree, it’s surface almost perfectly still. The mirror like effect was reflecting the twinkling tree, and the object that floated over the lakes smooth surface. A long, bright, taper ended rift. A brilliant light that spilled form the rift felt like home. 

Two orks, 5 goblins, 1 skink, 3 boars, 1 giant muskrat, and a six legged, pink spotted, spider-ish thing later and I was still staring at the tree, and the rift that was my way back to my original after life. 

-This can’t be chance. I must have sent myself here, when I died. How? Soul magic? 

I absently zapped the de-rezz of the pink spotted thing as I turned to looked at the tree again. 

-The tree and the lake weren't here when I first came through. Did the rift move? And what damaged the tree enough to cause that big of a rift? 

I checked on the consolidation of the soul marble left behind, reaching down to grab it and added it to the others in my jacket pocket. 

-It looks like a shaped explosion carved out the forest and the ground, which was filled by that small creek and created the lake.  

After a bit, I began walking around the lake to check out the shoreline. A glow from under the lake caught my attention and I noticed there were shapes both moving and static under the surface of the clear water. The glow was from a de-rezz sun light, faintly glowing through a swirl of greyish murky water. 

-That looks interesting. I wonder how the water effects the results? Does water get incorporated? Does the black sludge pool suck in water too? 

As I watched what I could see of the aquatic de-rezz process, I also noticed other details that had been hidden by the water’s reflective surface. There was a lot of rocky ruble intermixed with broken phantom tree trunks, limbs and branches. Fish, turtles, slimes, and other water creatures moved through the chaotic mess.  

After the de-rezz finished, the grey dust cloud created by the disturbance, rapidly settled down onto the ruble bellow. 

-Looks like the grey dust doesn't mix with the water at all. Not that it’s real water, more like a strong suggestion of what water looks like. 

I looked up to watch the pale soul bead rise out of the water without a ripple and float into the massive tree’s branches above.  

-Kind of breath taking.  

-I wonder if the bits of broken phantom trees hold magicicles. I would be nice to carry a portable power source with me. 

A bellow from the forest across the lake grabbed my attention, heralding the appearance of six limbed, sand coloured bear, grappling with a giant, rock encrusted gerbil. Their ferocious roars rippled the water as they ripped at each other with claws, tore with teeth, and battered with meaty blows that I could hear clearly from the distance. A few minutes later a large naked ork rushed out from the forest and joined into the melee. Just after that a group of goblins backed into the clearing fighting of a sickle armed tree trunk moving on a multitude of short thick legs. 

“What the hell is this?”-Me 

As the goblins started to de-rezz, more battling monsters started to emerge from the forest. I started to move back towards the forest, as a pale red shell clad humanoid rose from the lake surface. Its mouth parts moved frantically in a foaming mess as it stumbled over the uneven footing towards me. 

“Cín onlui thel- na- na taste man with butter”-Me 

I snapped off a quick air bomb into the crab-man's face which sent it sprawling back into the deeper water. I turned to rush into the forest, but realized I was too late. All around the lake monsters appeared, either engaged in battle, or soon joining the fray. 

Blue bolts cracked around me constantly, interspersed with sharp, chest thumping explosions from the various sized air bombs I lobed indiscriminately around my position. There was no time to plan, no room for technique, and little space to even think. Just a maelstrom of embattled monsters around me rending, screeching, and greying out into to de-rezz. I somehow managed to avoid stepping into any grasping black sludge pools, but as much as lightning and thunder reigned over my corner of the battle, I was soon battered and rent. Something massive caught me from behind sending me flailing like a boneless rag doll over the melee to end slamming to a stop on a thick tree branch over hanging the lake edge. I looked back between my legs. 

-It just had to a bear. Wait this can't be happening again! 

I frantically pulled myself up off the thigh thick branch, watching as several pencil sized small branches with accompanying pine needles were slowly dragged out of belly. The sound of my screams drowned out the roar of the continuing melee below. I held onto the branch as I sobbed and cried from the intense pain, gasping for breath as I frantically tried pushing the wounds closed. 

-HEHEhe, the bear only impaled me this time. I must be getting better at this combat thing. 

When the pain level got down to the point that I was no longer panicking, and could see past it. I could tell that the crowd of monsters was thinning out, with only the toughest and strongest having survived this long. A massive white and green mottled, stag horned, four-armed bear had dominated the area closest to me. Its last opponent, an incredibly fast and agile insectoid, got snagged by a wild swing, and subsequently ripped into two.  

The bear dropped to all sixes with a pulpy thud and roared its challenge against anyone else that dared to face it’s might. 

-Not that any of us are looking all that mighty right now.  

I looked around the lake from my death gripped perch. De-rezz suns ringed the lake, as if to illuminate the victors, each spaced apart almost like they had fought in separate arenas.  Most were large, powerful monsters, seemingly wearing the damage in their hides like uniforms of honor. But there were a few oddities that stood out. 

Just down the shoreline from my new tree home was a group of mixed goblinoids clubbing a now unrecognizable something into de-rezz. 

Across the lake a single child sized spider reigned, it’s carapace reflected the golden light off razor sharp edges. 

The area by the massive tree’s tangled roots was controlled by a mass of pale blue tentacles that rose out of the lake. I could just make out a multitude of eyes peering back from just under the water's surface. 

Silence descended around the lake as the suns eventually rose, fading out of sight. The massive horned bear bellowed a snorted out loud while looked at its closest opponents, then looked up at me. 

“Don’t look at me! I have about as much of an idea about what just happened as you do.”-Me 

“SNORT!’-Bear 

It lowered its head, dismissing me as nothing more than an irrelevant annoyance. 

-Did I just get treated like a squirrel? 

As I was figuring out a response to this latest Ursid atrocity visited on my dignity, the creatures around the lake started to get restless. Low growls, hisses, and in the tentacles case, menacing slaps against the lakes surface. 

“Looks like the semi-finals are about to start.”-Me 

A large white and grey Stag, dragging its broken wings, turned and limped off into the forest. The giant raccoon monster turned its back to the now vacant position and charge at its next closest opponent. It’s snarled chitter broke the tense standoff, as the rest of the combatants set into their next chosen prey.  

The sound of the battles became a deafening roar as I clung to the branch above the lake edge. Bits of tentacle monster were thrown from the lake as a lizard monster struggled to remain above the waters surface. The horned bear bowled his way through the goblinoids and slammed his front paws into the giant snake that was constricting what looked like a Treant. Massive monsters clawed and ripped till new de-rezz suns rose above lake till and only three were left. 

The razor spider tottered on its last four legs, a large chunk of its head and thorax missing. Only a few tentacles remained above the lakes surface bellow the massive tree, limply waving back and forth. Bellow me the stag horned bear sat on its ass huffing in exhaustion, it’s fur tattered, both left arms bent in odd angles. 

I watched as the razor spider hissed and moved steadily towards the massive phantom tree, moving over and amongst the tumbled roots to attack the remaining tentacles. The bear huffed and stirred a bit, lifting its head to watch the battle.  

The spider's razor-sharp mandibles made short work of the flailing tentacles, snipping them shorter as it agilely dodged from root to root. Only two small limbs rose above the lake when the spiders luck ran out, its legs failed to catch purchase on the hard slick surface of the phantom tree's roots. One tentacle managed to snag the tumbling spider's hind leg and yanked it into the lake, and below the surface.  The minutes passed like hours till a large sun broke through the water, pulling a trail of golden ribbon and silver glitter. 

I watched, not daring to move from my perch, as the sun faded, and finally the spider dragged its ragged body out of the lake and onto the shore. The spider was short another leg, both its mandibles were broken off, and it’s whole body looked like bite sized pieces had been eaten out of it.  

The bear stirred bellow me trying to get up, but it flopped back against the tree with a groan. It opened its huge dark eyes and looked up at me, letting out a soft moan when our eyes meet again. We stared into each other's eyes for few moments. I was about to say something, but I was halted when the bear whimpered once, then started to turn grey.  

I watched as the sun rose out from the fading grey form, ending up just a little bit lower than me. It was much larger than I had expected.  

-There is less black miasma gas than normal for a creature this size. Was this guy better than the average bear? 

Watching the grey dust spread out, the gold ribbon rise, and the black miasma coalesce, I got an idea. 

“Damn bear, being all big eyed and cute at the end.”-Me 

Wisps of misty air began swirling around my left hand as I pushed and twisted magicicles into a cylinder of extremely torrid air around the de-rezz. The air moved with surprising ease forming a natural spiral without any impetuses from me. The hard part was keeping it keeping it confined in a band around the de-rezz. I adjusted it a few times, landing on a thin line of high-pressure, high-speed air, with a soft area to either side holding and guiding the “jet stream”. A hazy edged cylinder of condensing water vapor and grey dust rose up from the ground like an oddly, can shaped tornado. Inside the air tube silver glitter, grey dust and black gluey miasma mixed with the gold ribbon, stirred and mixed all together.  

-Interesting effect, I wonder what would happen if I tried the opposite and created an unmoving air wall? I’ll have to try later. 

I braided a multi-leader chain and linked it through the de-rezz sun and down into ground. I was surprised at what I found below the lake edge. 

“I na- scarui" -Me 

A vast pool of neutral magicicles was sitting under the massive phantom tree, curling under the lake and flowing around the extensive roots. The braided leader sank into the pool, drawn into it before I could even react.  

“@#$%!”-Me 

-OH MUK! That dosn’t.... 

A huge surge of magicicles surged up the braided leader, rushing through the grey mix and hammered into the sun. It flashed blindingly bright and pulsed larger, sending out streamers of gold flame like solar flares. 

-Twist! Fire, before it... 

I frantically twisted, trying to send lightening down the leader that still connected me to swelling sun. One of the golden flares swirling across the suns now roiling surface reached the leader before I completed the magic. 

The world disappeared in gold fire. 

…. 

I opened my eyes to a frog floating above me and a glassy image of a large tree behind it. As I moved the frog darted off, and I realized that I was under water, under a layer of grey dust.  

-I’m not sure if I should be more disturbed that I'm not freaking out about not breathing, or not freaking out about what just happened. 

I slowly stood up, my head just below the water's surface, and watched as the grey dust fell off me, swirling around in the water. When the water cleared in could see that I was indeed under the lake, and that I had been laying in an oval shaped clearing in the otherwise rubble chaos that was the lake bed. 

-OK that’s not ominous at all. 

I kind of half swam, half moon-walked through the water the wasn’t, making my way out of the lake. The hardest part was the scramble over the rubble close to the shores edge, no longer held up by the water. When I made it onto the loose gravel shore, I could finally stand steady and look around. Only one thing stood out. A cloudy crystal spike rose out of a new circular shaped cove carved out of the lake edge. 

-No battle royal currently. Should I go check out what I suspect is the result of my spectacular failure. 

The tree that I had perched in, now leaned out from the 4-meter diameter, water filled, circular chunk of lake shore that had been blown out. The tree looked like it had been frosted in crystal glitter on the cove side, and looking close showed hundreds of pin point crystalline scars in the small area I examined.  

Tuning from the tree I looked at the crystal spike rising from the cove. I looked like a sculpture of an electric bolt, frozen in cloudy diamond. The base under the water looked like a fulgurite, branching out to disappear under a layer of grey dust. 

-I wonder how long it took for that layer of dust to accumulate?  

“How long was I knocked out under the lake?”-Me 

A hiss answered me from above. I flinched and frantically tried to twist to get my hands around to fight, and stopped. 

High above in the massive phantom tree I could see a now much larger razor spider, chasing a group of white monkeys from limb to limb. The spiders speed far outstripped the monkeys, which resulted in a goring rain of severed monkey bits falling from the sky above. The running slaughter quickly moved around the main trunk, angled up into the tree, and out of sight.  I slowly moved under the concealing branches of the leaning tree. 

-Yah... I think the next order of business is making sure I can fight. 

I climbed up the frosted trunk and up into the branches of the leaning phantom pine tree. I had to stop and unhook my cloths, and skin from the needles and smaller branches several times. Eventually I stopped on a conveniently wide branch above where I had been impaled before.  

-I should have chosen an easier tree to climb.  

I took the time to mend all the small tears in my cloths and skin, checking my pockets to find the soul marbles that I had collected earlier. 

-Something to eat later. First let's see how much damage I did to my core. 

I looked inward and was completely shocked. The damage was complete, the solar system was gone. The accretion disk was now just a few sparce looking clouds of neutral magicicles float in nothingness. The liquid magicicle creating twin cyclones were no more. The soul marble planets had left no trace and my crystalline core was a just a hazy globe of glinting dust. 

-It’s almost like I'm starting over again. No core, and no soul marble planets. I was looking forward to find out how liquid magicicle affected my magic twists. 

I spent time and gathered up the clouds of neutral magicicles then moved over to the glittery cloud of shattered crystalline core, the cloud wasn’t what I had expected. I had anticipated finding it comprised of ground shards, instead it was made up of tiny perfectly spherical beads. Crystalized magicicle has a hard diamond like glitter to it, the very same as the crystalized scarring on a damaged phantom tree. These had the optical clarity that reminded of sapphires.  

-Did the gold flare melt or vaporize everything? These condensed into perfect spheres like water in zero gravity? 

I could move them around like magicicles, so I shaved a small group out of the hazy globe and started to move them around and see what I could do with them. 

The sapphire spheres were incredibly interesting. They had a week attraction to each other, but inversely they would repel each other strongly when they got very close. Un like magicicles I could not chain them together. I could spin them, which didn’t seem to have any effect on its characteristics. But the most interesting affect was how it interacted with normal crystalline magicicles, it would become permanently affixed, and acted like a perfect swivel. Joining two rods with a sapphire sphere would allow the two to swing or spin independently but remained jointed together. 

I went back to the cloud of magicicles to get more to experiment with and realized just how small it was. 

-I really have to stop getting distracted. 

I opened my eyes to the sound of howls from deep in the phantom forest. I watched as a very large ooze slide out of the lake and into the forest at breakneck speed for a member of the slime family. 

-I hope the battle royale was one time thing. 

Closing my eyes, I began working on a new drill, one that would include sapphire sphere bearings. 

….. 

I watched from my hide, through the phantom tree’s cover, as a giant armadillo like creature battled it out with the razor spider in the final round of the latest battle royale. Both were heavily damaged from the previous fights but seem undaunted in their desire to dominate control over the massive phantom tree’s location. 

-There must be a reason why they fight over this area. Is there something about the tree, or the rift attracting them? The spider hasn’t shown any signs of hunger while I've been watching. Maybe this phantom Amar Galadhon staves off the starvation. 

The two seemed almost designed to counter each other. The armadillo's armor like hide was impervious to the spider's razors, whereas the armadillo could not land a solid hit on the fast and agile spider. 

-This looks like the championship bought will take a while. It's not like we un-live have endurance issues. Just hunger, which is why I should go back to what I was working on. 

I turn my vision inward again to do a final check on my latest work. I had rebuilt my drill with a few new modifications. The drill head was now tapered more like a top, with three cutting edges, and runnels leading back. The taper and expanding circumference of the bit should allow me to control the size of the hole, from small to large, eliminating the need to drill multiple holes. The three edges came from the pattern I used before collapsing the drill down into crystalline form. The complicated 3-D pattern would only work as a triangular shape, and came with the benefit that each of the three faces were perfectly symmetrical. It also meshed well with the much simpler cylindrical pattern that would become the shaft, saving me building a complicated “weld” between the bit and the shaft. 

Behind the bit head, the shaft of the drill was now encased using rings of the new sapphire spheres as bearings. This allowed me a point to “grip” without having to worry about affecting the rotation of the drill. I also hoped that the encasement would prevent any crystalline formation from affecting the spin of the main shaft if it ever got exposed to a large magicicle influx like the last drill. 

The end of the shaft was an admittedly awkward looking spherical cage encasing a disc that was perpendicular to the drill shaft. It will serve as both a fly wheel and large “gravity well” that I hoped would smooth out the flow of incoming magicicles. 

-It’s not pretty, and getting it balanced was tricky, but I think it will work. At least well enough to open a hole and re-charge. I probable over did it though. 

I looked around again. All that was left was the hazy globe of sapphire spheres, a small thin cloud of magicicles, and the drill. 

-Yep, over did it. Way to keep a healthy reserve you twit. If this doesn’t work maybe I can find another horticulturally inclined bear. 

I focused outward and checked on the current state of the battle. I was confused for a moment when all I could see was the ragged armadillo, till the spider fell from above. It looked like it had done a flying leap from up the phantom tree’s trunk in a “death from above” attack. The spider bounced. 

-Ahhh yahh. That fights not going to end anytime soon. 

I choose one of the small branches, and pressed my hand down on needles. Gave the drill a bit more spin, then “gripped” the case and pressed the tip against the needle. The drill bit made short work out the acrylic like surface as a strong stream of neutral magicicles flooded up the runnels and bent slightly as they raced past the sphere and the drills end. 

-That was the smallest hole, from just a pine needle, but the stream coming out is similar to a lot of holes in one of the phantom grasses. The pressure in one of these trees is insane. I really should check out one of the broken pieces under the lake. 

I watched how the drill handled the pressure of the stream, looking to see if it slowed the spin, or caused any wobble in the drill. After confirming that the drill was good, I watched how the stream was flowing and noted how the drill seemed to be keeping the crystalline scarring from forming on the needles surface. The fly wheel disc was having a slight effect on the magicicles, bending the tri stranded rapidly spiralling stream into a cone behind the drill. 

-Not a strong effect, but better than the chaos shotgun previous re-charges were. Maybe try for a slightly bigger hole and see how the drill handles it. 

I pressed the drill in further chewing out a larger hole. The larger runnels higher up the top shaped bit allowed a stronger stream through. The flow of magicicles fluctuated for a bit before stabilizing again. Once I was sure everything was going well, I backed the drill out to see how it handled the change, and to see how fast the crystalline scaring started. As soon as the drill backed off the needle, scaring built up along the smooth cut line, growing out like ice across freezing water.  

-Pretty, but I don’t want to see if the drill will “bind” as the scarring grows. 

I slowly backed the drill completely out of the hole, keeping the drill orientated so the flow continued to be affected by the fly wheel. The unobstructed flow quickly became a chaotic mess as the drill bit no longer had any affect, and the fly wheel not much more. Soon the scarring slowed the stream down, till the flow stopped completely. 

I quickly checked on the battle for the tree. The armadillo rolled into a ball had just slammed into a massive rock sending the spider flying. 

-Are they doing this for comedic effect now?  

I just closed my eyes and tried not to visualize what was happening from the sounds of battle. 

I checked on the expanding cloud of magicicles. The uncontrolled chaotic flow from the closing hole had set the somewhat uniform cloud formed from my initial drilling, to what now looked like two storm clouds crashing into each other. 

I reached in to my jacket pocket and grabbed one of the grey soul marbles and started to process it, watching how the magicicles flowed. It took considerable effort to draw from the chaotic clouds. From just “grasping” an area of magicicles, to getting them all to head in the same direction seemed to take more time and effort. Originally the influence from the crystalline core had formed the accretion disc of magicicles with them all flowing in the same direction. The uniformity making gathering and channeling them a much simpler task. 

-For something I made just because it was interesting, the core turned out to be really quite useful.  

As the sounds of battle continued across the lake, my thumb ran over the bridge of my nose as I contemplated what I would use to replace the original shattered core. 

…. 

The razor spider and the armadillo ending splitting the battle title into two; the Tyrant of branches, and the King of Roots. The spider retreated up into the massive tree while the armadillo settled onto the root mound around the trunk, each occasionally hissing at the other from a distance. 

-I wonder if they will choose opposite sides of the lake for the next battle royale. Once I get my new core up and running, I'll have to investigate why all this is happening. 

I swallowed the last of the soul marbles that I had collected before I ended up living in a tree. The irony of having to walk a mile in a squirrel's furry shoes aside, having the two champions patrolling the area while I was in the tree, meant that I could safely concentrate on my internal building. I now had four crystalline cores spinning, which I was using as test cases before I decided on a final design. 

The first two I had created were smaller copies of my original core design. They were both spinning in opposite directions, and were currently slowly rotating around a common point. I was using them to see how magicicles reacted to more than one influence close together, with the idea that maybe I could form a multi-core system. Two cores spinning in the same direction either on the same axis, or rotating around the same point were stable and quickly form accretion disks. The disc was much thicker with the same axis, were as the binary setup seemed to form bands naturally. The opposite spin wasn’t turning out so well. The same axis placement created a chaotic storm band between the two opposite spinning discs, whereas the current rotating around a fixed-point was proving to be unstable. Unfortunately, the size of the cores was unable to form cyclones, so I had no idea if a multi-core system would have any interesting muti cyclone effects. 

The third core was a long cylinder. It still created an magicicle disc, but it was both less dense, and not as far reaching. I did create stable cyclones which the two similarly volumed spheres were not able too. The cylinder was also tricky to increase its spin, any miss step started it to spall around a new access, which took time to correct. I could envision a point where even the smallest of “bump” would send it into an unrecoverable “ball of yarn” state. 

The fourth was a small torrid made from the sapphire spheres. I had discovered that if you spin a sapphire sphere at a high enough speed, it lost the repulsive affect, and the faster it spins the more fluid it would become.  It then can be shaped and merged with similarly spinning spheres, making large intricate shapes possible like a potter shaping clay. Unlike crystalline magicicle it would lose spin till it returned to a static, hard state. The sapphire torrid also had no effect on the neutral magicicles, which made it debatable if I could call it a core at all.   

-The sphere shape looks like the best option, and any other shape is probably going to look like a sphere at high enough spin anyway. 

The cylinder test had shown just how difficult keeping any crystalline structure rotating on a single axis at high speed without adding extra measures like the drill’s sapphire bearings and encasement.  

-I’ll start with just the single core and maybe add others latter. I'll keep experimenting with the smaller ones and see if there are any weird effects. Maybe add a third or fourth core to the test. 

I recharged from the phantom tree’s needles then started to link magicicles together in the same pattern I used for the magic mill’s core. I estimated that I could fit 5 or 6 shell layers in my internal space. 

…. 

I was just finishing the third shell where I heard the opening bellows of the next lake side battle. Opening my eyes, I could see the latest batch of contestants starting the elimination free for all. A crack of lightening immediately drew my attention, another followed shortly. 

-This could be bad. Gúl, I mean magic is my thing. Could it be an intelligent creature? 

 I had to climb down to the lowest branches till I could see what creature could still use magic in the afterlife. It turned out not to be intelligent or a creature at all. I stared with my mouth open as a Crab-man was knocked into the small cove and against the crystalline spire. A vividly deep violet bolt of lightning charred a fist sized hole as it passed through the monster's torso, grounding out into the cove’s shore.  

-Did my twist get imprinted in the spire like I've done to soul marbles before? 

Something scrambling past me broke me from my contemplation of the spire. I saw a bushy tail disappear up and around the trunk of the tree. 

“Hey! This is my fortress of cowardness. Get your own!”-Me 

As the battle raged more creatures retreated into my tree. If they were aggressive, they were air bombed back into the chaotic melee below. I let the others go where they would. 

“I might have to do some housekeeping later. Hmm, I wonder if I feed them processed marbles, will they act normal?”-Me 

I defended my citadel and watched the spire eliminate any of the creatures that touched it. As the sudden elimination round came to a close, back lite by the plethora of de-rezz suns, I noticed that the “arena” below me was empty. 

“And the win goes to Keraunos, Zeus’s thunder bolt.”-Me 

-Since the space is clear do I risk grabbing soul marbles in the de-rezz faze, or wait till after the semifinals? Nothing ventured... 

I carefully climbed down the trunk and started zapping away at the larger suns. A few of the contestants looked towards the noise, but none seemed inclined to venture in my direction.  

-After Keraunos's display, they might not dare. I know I’m not getting anywhere close to spire just yet. 

When the de-rezz suns started to fade, I moved close to the tree. The challenge cries started shortly after, sending me back up into the tree. 

-I'll have to retrieve the marbles later. Looks like the spider and armadillo did each take a side of the lake. 

At the base of the tree the armadillo was currently ramming full speed into a ragged ogre, while on the other side of the lake the razor spider was thrashing it out in a pile of small sharp toothed, multi legged furry ball like creatures. 

-That looks horrid. Whatever the muk those things are, I really hope they don’t win. 

I shuddered at the thought of facing off against a horde of living shark toothed mouths.  

The Armadillo lost to a giant praying mantis creature that managed to get a lucky sickle arm into its relatively soft underside. The mantis’s luck ran out immediately after when a thin black Treant twisted its head off. The other side of the lake was again dominated by the razor spider till the end when a giant bejewelled crab held the spider down and clipped the spider into pieces. 

While the two remaining contestants stared eye stalk to eye knot, I took the chance to climb down and start zapping the armadillo’s rather large de-rezz. As I was keeping an eye on the thin black treant I noticed it flinch slightly each time a bolt cracked into the air cylinder I had built around the de-rezz. 

-Looks like the Treant doesn't like lightning. Hopefully it will decide that I'm not worth playing with. 

After the armadillo’s muted de-rezz sun had faded, I collected it and the earlier soul marbles and retreated to the tree. Liberace the crab, side crawled into the lake by the great tree’s roots, it’ remaining three eye stalks were the last part to disappear under the water. Black wood, the ebony coloured Treant, apparently gave up on the dazzling crab, and seemed content to root into the lakes edge between Keraunos and the phantom great tree. I was happy to give both of them a wide birth as I filled all my pockets with the fallen soul marbles. I kept the ones I had pre zapped separate, I liked to honey taste the gold flecks gave them. 

Most of the smaller creatures that had sought refuge in my phantom fir tree had vacated voluntarily. In the case of an aggressive two headed, three tailed snake, a lightning eviction left me with a new gold flecked marble. A fluffy multi coloured lemur type creature and a small bald green sprite turned out to be comfortable neighbors, and more than happy to be feed processed marbles. They both ended up collecting soul marbles they found and bringing them to me to “cook” for them. 

“You guys are way too cute.”-Me 

I smiled as passed the finished marbles to their eagerly awaiting hands. The lemur would lick his for a bit, whereas the winged sprite would eat hers like a babe bird in one gulp. Once they were done, they would hang around for bit, the lemur would sit in my lap and groom his fur while the sprite would sometimes braid some of my hair or hang upside down from a branch. Once she had flopped on top of my head to watch lemur get his fur just right, she tapped my head in frustration every time I moved. 

Blackwood moved occasionally to new spots around the lake, but he never got close to Keraunos, or consequently my phantom fir. Blackwood turned out to be a crack shot with thrown rocks. From knocking monkeys out of the overhanging great tree’s branches, to sniping large monsters across the lake. I didn’t test his patience and stayed by Keraunos, but he seemed tolerant of smaller monsters, even allowing some of them hang out in his expanding branches. 

Liberace crab’s eye stalks would occasionally appear out of the lake’s surface peering around, but other than a rare golden de-rezz sun glow from the lake's depths I never saw a glint of his jeweled shell. 

I continued to play with my neighbors and build my new core and occasionally going for a walk down to peer at Keraunos. I cautiously learned that the crystal lightning bolt would only discharge if the surface was touched, by say a thrown rock, or a tossed back stab happy, wana-be goblin assassin. The resulting violet bolt would ground out some were along the small coves water edge, leaving a ring of black fulgurites like jagged edged poka-dots on the shoreline. The cloudiness of the spire came from the mass of white twist traces throughout its length. I am sure I spent hours just tracing what seemed to me to be massive version of the lightening wolf’s twist that I used, always on the opposite side to Blackwood. 

I was working on the fifth and last shell of my new core when the next battle royale started. In the end Liberace and Blackwood shared the champion ship with a diamond leafed vine creature that claimed the great tree’s phantom branches, a realm that the others did not care much for. 

A palm sized ladybug that could still glide without magic, joined our phantom fir community. I do not think I was any more intelligent than an average goldfish, but it was pretty, non-aggressive and would eat the marbles I would leave out for it. I also brought a gel like gold tinted slime up into the tree, which the sprite seemed to like to use as a bed. At least till the gel mattress moved to the underside of a branch, sending the sprite startled and gliding down to the ground. I caught it poking the slime a few times after that. 

Finally, I had my new core structure built, checked, refined, and rechecked. The five-shell layered structure just fit in my internal space. 

-Not quite as impressive as the magic mill core, but then again, I am space limited here. 

The sapphire sphere cloud and torrid had been moved up to my head, the spindle was in my left arm were as the binary cores were separated and moved down into each leg. I processed a week’s worth of marbles which I showed to the sprite and the lemur and placed them in an outside pocket where they could get to them. I didn’t bother the ladybug or the gold slime. I also checked on the triple crown campions.  

Blackwood now had thicker branches and his bark was looking more like the obsidian its colour suggested. I watch as a three rocks ripped across the lake like rifle bullets to blow holes into a large ape dragging a broken phantom tree limb.  

-I'm not sure I should be more scared by Blackwood’s imitation of a tri barreled cannon, or where that ape got a phantom tree branch for a club. 

Liberace continued his submarine impersonation, his multiple eye stalks currently watching all of us at the same time. 

Grapes of Wrath, the diamond leaved vine monster, was currently earning it’s nickname grinding a giant snake into small pieces in the tree above. 

-They all seem busy, so I should be too. 

I returned to my spot in the phantom fir tree and turn my attention to my new core. I could hardly see anything past the mass of magicicles that I had filled my internal space to near bursting. 

-This is going to be Aglareb, glorious or complete Muk. 

I started the inner most shell collapsing. Each layer was pressed in and locked into place, followed by the next. Soon I was hammering each of the shells push points in time to get it to collapse and lock. Each new shell getting just a bit harder to hit the timing right. 

-There are less shells than the magic mill, but it seems to be harder to get it to collapse. Is it the difference between neutral magicicles compared to water magicicles from the mill river? 

I paused for a bit to gather my thoughts, and refocus on the timing. 

-I hate wack-a-mole. Maybe I should have spent some time on Mentat training before I started. No. Concentrate and reach the goal. 

I returned to my construct with renewed vigor. Shell by shell I pounded them down into locked position, till finally it started to move on its own. The slinky motion that I had watched in the magic mill’s core collapse was repeated here till it became a blur of motion, sucking in the neutral magicicle cloud with it. 

Finally, a new glittering core spun in the center of my chest, already pulling the remaining magicicle cloud into a spiral. 

-It looks like it maybe even more powerful at a lower spin than the original. It's also bigger, and seems denser that the two test cores I built similar to the original “toy” pattern. 

I drilled some new holes into the needles piercing my right hand to feed my new system’s forming disk. I spent time spinning the new bigger core up, watching the bigger cyclones form and feeding more magicicles into the system again. For an ascetic quirk, I placed the sapphire torrid in orbit around my new crystalline core. 

-Kind of looks like a star gate this way, and it's good to know that a core’s “gravity” can also affect sapphire. Hmmm, I wonder if I should put a core in the sapphire cloud, maybe do a collapse with saphire in the cloud? Damn I'm hungry 

I took my hand away from rubbing my nose to check on the processed marbles in my pocket. There were none left. Something hit me between the eyes. I opened then to see the sprite lining up to throw the next grey marble. I quickly threw up my hands, blocking the pitched marble. 

“Hey! I surrender! I’m guessing you all are hungry too?”-Me 

The sprite put down the next marble that the lemur had held out for her. 

“I know she’s got a short temper, but you too?”-Me  

The lemur held up his head, and the next marble for the sprit to throw. The evil green witch beaned the marble right off the bridge of my nose.