“Ah, yes, I shall remind him. Could I also ask for a different piece of cake than this morning to be brought outside? If available that is.”
Harold responded with a raised eyebrow as he opened the games room door for her, walking in after her as he spoke.
“Of course, it seems your grace has developed quite a sweet tooth over the last few days. Would you like me to bring anything else?”
Aurora pondered for a moment before answering, a hint of excitement showing on her face.
“A cocktail you feel may be complementary to the cake if you don’t mind.”
Aurora walked through the patio doors Harold held open for her before he left to perform his new set of tasks. With a quick glance around, she waved in greeting at her 3 friends who were all reclined on the wicker furniture surrounding a low glass table.
The vista before her was as breath taking as usual, with the sun setting over the rise on the other side of the valley where her manor was located, and the trimmed lawn at the edge of the patio slowly changing into the rough grass of fields and meadows. At the bottom of the valley, she could see flickers of the sun’s light flickering off the river that lazily flowed along the valley floor, the whole scene bringing her a sense of serenity after such a crazy day. And with their backs to her were her close friends who all sat around their usual table in the late autumn evening. She called out in greeting as she approached.
“Evening guys.”
“Aurora!”
“How's it going man.”
“Ay boss, remove the blood and you wash up pretty good!”
Aurora let out a light laugh as she hugged Roxanne and Ben, while Tyrell gave her a bro hug, something that made her quite happy since it was their usual greeting.
She took off her coat and sat down on the wicker sofa next to Ben, glancing over to Tyrell who was sitting in an armchair to the right as he addressed her.
“So, thought I’d come over and bring you some of the good shit. You man seemed to be quite stressed yesterday morning, so I got my guy to get us some Cali strains. Helps that Ben also asked me to grab us some as well. You need some time to properly chill, so I got you.”
Aurora raised an eyebrow as she saw a couple of particularly large pots of weed on the table, picking one up and smelling it.
“I appreciate it, Tyrell, seriously. Now, I guess this is Silver Bubble right? What about the others?”
Ben leaned back and took a large puff of the lit spliff that was held between his fingers, also looking at Tyrell with interest in his answer.
“Let me check… yeah, the blue one you have is Silver Bubble, Laughing Buddha in the yellow one, and Ben's favourite Stardog in the gold one.”
Aurora gave a sage nod as she picked up an empty grinder and started to get to work rolling herself a joint.
Roxanne being the most sober of the group started folding a roach for her as she asked the important question the rest had either forgotten or become too distracted to ask.
“So, how did the meeting go? Did… Gareth was it? Did he accept your explanation? Or tell you to go to an asylum?”
Aurora let a smirk play on her lips as she spun the grinder's handle, frowning at how sticky the weed was.
“Thankfully, yes. I showed him an illusion of a wyvern attack we encountered on a trip in the past. I do feel a little bad since he seemed to be a few steps away from soiling himself, poor guy. But after that, the conversation went quite well. At the very least the revelations I gave him helped increase his confidence in my previous quite questionable seeming decisions.”
Roxanne gave a satisfied smile as she passed Aurora a rolled roach and a paper, taking the spliff Ben was offering in return for her effort.
“Here. I'm glad things went well. I can't imagine how stressful it must all be, I know I would have lost my mind already. But what's this about an illusion?”
Ben with an intrigued expression leaned forward and gestured to Aurora.
“Huh? Didn’t you know, she is the female super wizard Gandalf. Something like an illusion is but a mere trifle! But seriously, if you can create illusions, show us something good.”
Aurora let out a sigh of exasperation as she glanced at Ben, and seeing the unconcealed excitement shared by Tyrell to his side, she caved into the eager demand.
“Fine, but pass me the pen over there. I used a fair bit of my limited mana over my meeting earlier, and since the atmospheric mana here is so low at the moment, I have only recovered a modest amount, so you get one short illusion.”
Using the pen Ben passed over to pack the weed properly into her joint from its open end, Aurora tapped the finished joint on her lips as she thought about what to show.
“Well, I could show you a view of the Caelesian Empire’s capital, or maybe a scene of the southern desert nation? Maybe a distant view of the Draconic Mountains? I even had a chance to visit the closed-off elven nation so could show you what little of what their forests look like or even what their so-called world tree is like?”
Roxanne being the voice of reason was the first to speak up, her tone contemplative.
“Well, we are all going to be visiting the empire within the week right? So we may as well pick another place. The world tree sounds quite interesting, the same with the draconic mountains. What do you say, Tyrell?”
Tyrell who was puffing on his own joint let the inhaled smoke out of his nose with a hum.
“I'm down for some dragons. Aurora, don’t suppose us man can go kill us one? Grand Retribution Paladin StormBane, the dragon slayer… has a sick ring to it don’t you think.”
Roxanne rolled her eyes while Ben looked at Tyrell deep in thought, all waiting for Aurora to answer.
“Well, I advise against attacking any of the dragons from the Draconic Mountains, after all, they are not mindless monsters, and we needn’t bring the ire of their nation upon us. That said, there are some rogue dragons around the continent who were exiled from the Draconic Mountains, usually for bad crimes. We might be able to go and hunt one of them once we are strong enough, but it will take some time before we can be even remotely considered ready.”
Tyrell let out a disappointed snort as he crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair as he rebuked Aurora’s statement.
“Ay man, Ain’t no scaly lizard boy gonna stop me. I’ma clap mand head so hard he be seeing as many stars as I am from this joint.”
Aurora and Roxanne shared an exasperated glance while Ben spoke up, passing his lighter to her.
“Damn, you're already that high and you're only on your second? And I thought your tolerance was supposed to be as high as mine! But yeah, sign me up right up, I'm down for dragon hunting. Just a shame there will be no watch tower to snipe it from for our first encounter.”
Aurora gave a little giggle at the reference as she let a cocky smirk play on her lips, the memory of her earlier gained bragging rights suddenly brought to the front of her mind by the song currently being quietly played on the speaker.
“If you want, I can invite BigZ to the hunt as well.”
Tyrell and Ben both looked at Aurora with looks of confusion till she pointed at the speaker, causing the light of recognition to spark in their eyes.
“Yo, I didn't realise BigZ played Caelus, that's wicked”
Aurora dismissively waved her hand as if Tyrell's statement was nothing important.
“He does, I surprisingly ran into him at the border, and Ash and I ended up partying up with him for a little while. We even spent the night camping. It was quite fun.”
Tyrell and Ben's faces immediately showed expressions of shock, quickly replaced by envy.
“Dude, for real? That’s crazy, I wish I had joined you for the trip. You find out anything interesting about him?”
Aurora puffed her chest out a little more than usual as she lit her joint and inhaled with a satisfied smile.
“Well, for one he didn't even prepare for the trip. He didn't even have food! But nothing major to be honest. We mainly spoke about the game, and he had two random travelling companions so the conversation was not really about him.”
Tyrell let out a disappointed sigh, slumping his shoulders in defeat.
“Well, I doubt man’s going to brag about bapping a wasteman in the ‘ead now, especially to a pretty little white girl.”
Aurora and Ben let out a snort of laughter at the weird mix of irony and truth of the statement while Roxanne cut into the conversation again.
“Ok, bragging rights aside, I want to see this illusion before Aurora gets too high and shows us something weird instead…”
The rest of the evening went on in a similar fashion as the four friends relaxed for a while, laughing the evening away as Aurora enjoyed the nostalgic atmosphere that brought a sense of normality and relief that she had forgotten since the world was turned upside down.
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"The calm before the storm" ahh title
I was NOT expecting weed when you meant "chill" 😂
ahaha, its a given based on Ben and Tryells personalities XD
The following comment, I made as a response to another reader in the last chapter. I thought about the stuff hard and arrive at some interesting conclusions you should be aware of. My longest comment on the internet yet, so I didn't proofread it. It's 0:55 (12:55 am) and I am tired.
The only reason Chernobyl happened was bad safety precautions, lack/ignoring of procedures and not the machineries fault. Today the standards are much higher and safety is the top priority. As such, even with sudden anomalies in the reactor or other parts of the system, the warning signs will be noticed and action will be taken swiftly. The vast majority of powerplants would thus be completely fine. There would need to be similarly terrible procedures and precautions as in Chernobyl for it to go out of control.
The thing with radiation, that the author might also have not realised is that radiation is just matter flying at high speeds and ionising everything it hits. The amount of radiation or the effects of it won't increase randomly, because where would that matter be coming from?
It's likely even, that atoms will become either more or less stable because of the mana having effects on the binding forces of the atoms, keeping the cores together. Only if the force gets weaker will the half life of the atoms decrease / the radiation increase. If these forces get stronger, there will be more stable elements though, which also means potentially more elements and thus materials. There are some implications of that that we will need to consider, such as the effects on cosmic bodies like stars. Wr can safely ignore that though, if the mana influx is limited to earth only.
I personally think that the forces getting slightly stronger is prefferable from a writing standpoint, because then you will a have scientific reason and explanation behind why stuff like mythril and orichalcum and whatever other fantasy materials suddenly exist.
I am sure there are other serious implications of the fundamental forces changing even the slightest, but I wouldn't worry about that too much, since my knowledge doesn't span that far. If someone finds an issue, we can just explain it away with mana, like we always do.
Also, hopefully the smoking won't be a common thing. Not really fond of that.
The following is my response to their response to my response to their comment. If you want the full context, go read Voidiris' comments in the last chapter's comments. I think this is important to clear up some things I've said:
Chernobyl's incident had nothing to do with the reactor model or the age of the instruments. I was stating facts that I got from someone on a podcast that worked in nuclear powerplants for years.
About combustion. I am assuming it got stronger because of the reactivity of the chemicals involved. The whole point of the mana infusion, is that some properties of chemicals change. How flammable something is is also determined by the properties of the chemicals. That having been said, yes, I guess what I said about mana influencing the nuclear power needs to be thought over a little. Gravity is not an energy. Gravity is its completely own force, since ONLY GRAVITY can meddle with both space and time, which means it is different from the rest and thus can't be an energy. It's just a force.
Stars wouldn't be affected by the elements getting new siblings. Stars contain mostly helium and hydrogen, the two lightest elements. If radioactive elements get stable, it just means that you will be able to add a few elements to the end of the periodic table, not the start. Stars don't go that high. What I am more worried about is if the process changes or the side effects change. If the sun suddenly got hotter for example, which it seems like mana would cause, earth would be f*cked. Some powerplant going kablooey would be of little priority compared to that. As such, if we don't restrict mana to earth only, then things will certainly get a lot more complicated.
Your description of radiation is lacking, and thus everything following may be wrong or missing depth that is VERY important. Believe it or not, radiation is a way for energy to travel.(the other being conduction) Specifically radiant energy, more commonly known as light? Which has no mass and although definitely not invalidated, your theory should be revised around that?
@Closeranemone48 I was referring to alpha, beta and gamma radiation, that is usually what we associate with radiation in the context of nuclear/fission reactors.
Is this comment still about weed or somne shet?
@Hiken If I were to make a guess/suggestion it kinda would depend on how mana spreads? If its a slow leak from the gods connection they could limit where it goes. Or perhaps its a slow leak from the soon to be dungeons soaking into earths atmosphere before spreading out into the universe, stars might not get affected for a while, and since mana strengthens things earth might actually get colder for a while since its stronger(more resistant?) to the sun, until the sun catches up with mana and they balance out. The other planets depending on solar position might be in trouble based on which mana touches first, them or the sun.
This is based on the theory that mana flows in a way similar to matter though. Even if not it seems earth would probably get the first "rays"? of mana before anything else.
@Khii the mana infusion was compared to putting dye into a cup of water last time. It flows out at a particular place until it spreads out evenly. That doesn't change the fact, that it should be confined to earth. The whole earth gets colder thing doesn't make sense and if the processes inside of the sun changed it wouldn't be a goldilock star anymore. The way earth can support life is very fragile. Mana in the sun would make throws things into chaos. Basically just like what I said. We'd be f*cked.
@SorrowGrim no.
@Hiken yes and no. I'm trying to make this novel realistic - at least to my experiences - of real life. In this case, casual tobacco smoking may pop up from time to time since it is something Tyrell and Ben partake in regularly, while weed will be occasional, and might turn up from time to time on a night out. this will be the only blatant time (that has been planned as of yet) for Aurora to sit around smoking like this. She was while still Chester a social smoker, ie only in social situations when, for example, the group goes out to the smoking area, and since the change, I plan to have it be something she slowly drops as part of her shift to a more feminine personality. just a small thing, and will be only a footnote, but will be there if you look for it.
So yes, it will be a thing, but situational and less applicable to Aurora as the novel progresses. I hope that clears things up. I know the smoking issue can be quite controversial for some, but its just an aspect of society, at least in the UK, that I plan on including.
@Hiken you do raise some good points, ngl. having radioactive materials becoming less radioactive might be the way forward, and to be frank, I will need to plunge into another big stack of hours for research and speculation. But I guess we can have the bottom line of 'If it doesn't make sense, blame Jupiter and magical bs'. but yeah, I should probably sort out a long list of energy and matter types and list how mana would at a first glance interact with them. There is also the nature of mana which I have some leeway with (no spoilers for that part though XD) so yeah. But good points to raise, I did leave a few holes.
@Hiken my assumption for fission + mana would be more energetic neutrons at worst... As long as it didn't go 0 to 100 instantly any consequences should be manageable via the control rods even if that means shutting the reactor down completely. The funny thing is that neutron capture only works for slower neutrons so mana might reduce fission rate if not corrected for.
But mana in the sun... That's a can of worms. I agree that there shouldn't be much for mana to muck with, but if it did there would be weirdness. Like, would a gradual increase in energy due to mana enhanced fusion nicely balance out against the density drop from hydrostatic pressure? Bigger/hotter stars are such because they have a lot more core pressure and active fusion volume, I don't think mana could mangle things to make even a single solar mass increase. The scarier option would be mana altering stuff like the atomic binding force values and completely scrambling the fusion requirements, that could result in anything.
@Hiken I meant more like the particles that absorb/block solar radiation in the atmosphere could in theory get stronger/more potent, making overall less heat make it to earth, until the sun also gets a mana boost potentially evening things out. This is only based on if mana will seep into the solar system though, and not trapped on earth.
If earth gets boosted first, sun later, we'd probably have a cold snap till solar boost. Then hopefully things equal back out.
Dunno if this is how it works, was just a thought about how energies could affect one another while being "strengthened"
It seems ultimately everything should reach a balance eventually, but like people will have a chaotic period. I'm no physics expert though and could be way off.
@Khii I know what you are trying to say, but that's a very shallow view of it. The atmosphere doesn't just magically absorb light and heat. It's all just mass in the end. But that is not even the issue. The issue is that if mana were to affect the sun, heat would be only a very tiny concern in comparison to what else it could bring. For example, solar flares could reach far enough to completely shut down communications of any sort or the sun might get unstable, which over longer periods would be devastating. As I have said, there is a reason that the only planet we know to have life on it is earth. A goldilock star like the sun is very fragile and hard to come by. Just the smallest of fundamental changes could completely disrupt more than just the heat in the sun.
It's kind of like those scenarios of things like "what would happen if the earth stopped rotating for 5 seconds" where in every case and scenario like that, it ends in the end of complex life.
@Hiken A change in the sun's magnetic field for example could spell disaster. It's a whole can of worms you don't want to open. We're the Heliosphere to be slightly changed, the planets would be bombarded with uncountable amounts of stellar radiation from space outside of our solar system. That alone would be too much for life's survival. Some ozones won't stop the consequences of a mana-infused sun.