She trod down the dimly lit corridor. The air filled with a familiar and heavy scent. Sounds could be heard in a closet not far from where she was, and she also knew that the room to her right was occupied with a group engaged in the same activity. She tried to ignore it, even though she knew full well these were happening far too frequently nowadays. Nothing they had done helped to do more than curbing the tide.
She sighed, in a way it was a blessing but also a curse. There were only a few million of them left. They had no worlds to their name and only a smattering of ships. Sure they could build more, they retained that ability even if they had lost Earth, but there weren’t enough of them to support a larger fleet.
Her line of thought was suddenly broken, when alarms blared and the blue light strips on the walls turned an ominous red. She reached out and connected with the others asking for a report.
“They found us! Forty-nine ships have entered the system, and more are converging on our position.”
The world shimmered and suddenly she was elsewhere. Now she was in a brightly lit corridor moving with urgency. The corridor shuddered, and she stumbled. Getting back to her feet, she continued down the corridor.
She knew what was happening, the base was being targeted. The ground batteries were in armored bunkers, but they would not last forever. She needed to get to the ship and report to the captain. The Enterprise would not wait forever, even for its first officer.
The corridor shuddered again behind her, a screeching tearing sound accompanied the collapse of the ceiling. The metal supports had buckled, earth and rock filled the underground corridor. There was no going back, only forward to the ship hanger. She hurried along to the hanger.
Her world changed again. No longer was she in a well-lit corridor, but a large dimly lit room. All around her were the concerned faces of people she vaguely remembered. Many of them seemed tired and exhausted. One of them, a younger woman, leaned forward and activated a small object on the table. Immediately a three-dimensional sphere was projected. It looked like a moon, but it wasn’t the blue-green look she was familiar with. Instead, the surface was brown, with some white near the top and bottom. In a few spots, it was marked with green and blue.
“Not a very pleasant world. Not only are we rather close to Cathamari space, but this moon is rather... lacking. It’s virtually a desert, a cold one. Most of the surface water is ice, but it does have a couple of small seas. Most of the surface vegetation is near those seas, and frankly it’s rather sparse. Although it might sustain a colony.”
She leaned forward, and said, “Maybe, but I don’t want to be this close to Cathamari space. The problem with empires is they tend to expand. I vote we harvest anything useful, and leave. Another system further away would be better.”
The young woman sighed, “You always say that.”
An older man interjected, “Maybe, but he is right. Empires expand, and we have encountered their ships several times in this sector. Besides, I believe most would want a more Earth-like world, or at the very least one that won’t need a century of terraforming.”
Another older woman said, “As much as I loath agreeing with that machine I concur. This world won’t suit our needs. You forgot to mention that it is rather lacking in useful minerals as well. We would be hard-pressed to defend this...rock if the Cathamari decide they want it.”
The worlds faded, and she stirred in her bed. She shifted and tried to go back into the worlds she had been visiting. Her world once again faded into the land of dreams, but she did not get the answers she sought instead, she was treated to a different scene.
She found herself in a dimly lit, but spacious room. She stood on a white line, on the floor in the distance was a target dummy. One she knew to be heavily enchanted to resist all but the most powerful spells.
She took a breath. Today was the day, she could feel it. It had taken centuries, but finally she was going to master her spell. The one she had been working on for centuries. One she knew would propel magic to new heights once she spread knowledge of it.
Taking a moment to center herself, she began to cast. Spell formula flashed through her mind, but she spoke no words. She needed no chant, she was a master of this spell, and no longer needed the crutch, but the words still entered her mind. “With celestial radiance, the stars burn white. By the power of fire lightning, and light I summon a ray to smite thy foe and burn him unto ash... White Plasma!”
From her fingertips, a burning white beam sprang forth and lit the room up brightly. It shot across the space and tore into the dummy with such power that the enchantments could not stop the spell. Then it punched into the wall, which had also been heavily enchanted. The wall seemed to hold, but then it simply melted as the beam ripped through it before fading away, revealing blackness, and the occasional glowing dot. Around her, the air began to rush towards the breach in the wall. Klaxons sounded, and lights turned red.
She watched the breach unconcerned, as she willed her feet to stick strongly to the floor. After a moment a barrier shimmered into place, and the air stabilized. It seemed the spell was stronger than she had thought. Clearly, she needed more practice and a stronger dummy. Not to mention the hull needed to be reinforced, they didn’t need another hull breach. At least she didn’t have to explain how it happened. Just order someone to fix it. The perks of being in charge.
The scene faded, and she stirred again. This time more fully, and quite awake. Her mind focused on the spell formulas she saw in her dream. She slipped out of her bed, ignoring her surroundings. Arlie went straight to her bag, pulled out her spell book and opened it to a blank page. She had not even noticed her current state of undress or the naked Rose in her bed. The young twin she had been playing with just a few hours before. The memory of it wasn’t even in her frame of focus.
All that existed for her was the complex spell formulas she had seen in her dream. It was the kind of epiphany that many mages dreamed of having. She suddenly understood the elements of fire, lightning, light, plasma and celestial on a level she never had before. Light was an element she had always struggled with yet now it suddenly seemed trivial to cast. She blinked and waved a hand at an annoyance. The page filled with new text, and complex spell formulas. The page too small to hold it all, she flipped to a new one and filled it as well. By the time she was done, she had filled nearly twenty pages with text, diagrams and spell formulas.
Then she turned to the girl waving a hand in her face. She froze when she noticed Rose’s bare form. Rose smiled, and said, “Glad to see you woke up, and are back to yourself. Just what was so important that you had to ignore me?”
Arlie glanced at her bare chest, and flushed deeply. A memory of what she had done just hours before flashed into her mind. She looked away, and meekly answered, “A spell. I dreamt up a powerful spell, among other things.”
Rose gave a curious glance at the spell book, but Arlie knew those spell formulas were beyond her. Rose was still very much a beginner. Then Rose’s face morphed , and she leaned forward placing her modest chest prominently in Arlie’s field of view. “Why don’t we go out, have something to eat, and discuss those dreams over a nice meal.”
Arlie could barely focus on her words. Her mind mostly thinking up ways to play with her friend’s boobs. She just wanted to touch them. She pushed those thoughts aside, and then blushed as another memory of what she had been doing lately surfaced. This time she remembered running down the hall naked with an equally naked twin chasing after her, naturally that twin was Rose. She had a lot of apologizing and explaining to do, and she was not looking forward to the prospect. That behavior was a bit shameful, and she had been acting a lot like a child lately. It was embarrassing to be seen behaving that way. The nude thing didn’t bother her all that much. She mainly hid her body because of how she hated the looks boys gave her. She would much prefer it if those same looks were coming from cute girls. She didn’t really need clothing to protect from the elements. As a trained mage her body was strengthened by the mana coursing through her body. The mana protected her in different ways based on the affinity involved.
She nodded, “a nice lunch sounds pleasurable.”
Rose smiled, “Great! Let’s get dressed and I’ll invite Lily.”
Rose practically rushed for her bag, clearly excited. Arlie glanced back at her new spell. Well, she really couldn’t call it hers yet. She needed to successfully cast it first, and then there was mastering it. A spell could not be considered mastered until it could be cast chantlessly. Afterall a chant was a crutch, something designed to focus the mind of the mage. She may have been given a chant to go with it, but it really didn’t matter. The words of a chant were meaningless to the spell. What truly mattered to a spell was the spell formulas. They were what told the mana what to do. At the moment she needed time to fully study those formulas, to memorize them, and practice. On top of the practice she had to do with shield spells. Then of course there were the questions her dreams had brought. What were the gods trying to tell her? What was the significance of this world called Earth? Problem was there was no one to answer her questions, except maybe Aurora.
She simply wasn’t sure it was the right choice to ask that dragon. In fact she was sure that it wasn’t the best choice. Aurora was knowledgeable to be sure, but ...
Her thoughts were broken suddenly by Rose urging her to hurry. Looking over Rose already had half her clothing on, and was pulling a nice top over her head. Meanwhile, she hadn’t put anything on. Pushing her questions aside for a moment, she headed for her pack. Already thinking about what to wear. Her spell book left open on the writing table.
Reaching the pack, she pulled out a pair of panties and a chest wrap. She slipped the panties on, and then wrapped her chest. By the time she was done wrapping her chest, Rose was already out the room and dressed in one of her nicer outfits. A cute top paired with a matching skirt. She had a feeling that Rose was planning something, but wasn’t sure what. She slipped into the pack, and selected a nice light blue robe with silver trim. Something she felt would look nice, and would be appropriate. She slipped into the robe quickly, and then hurried after Rose. Her footwear left rather forgotten in the room.
