[Outcast,Personal]

  After dropping Maz off at the tower with some rechargeable batteries and an electric motor I portaled back to the vineyard, where Opal and Mike waited for me. I gave Mike the electric engraver, and the eye protectors.

  “Rose, could you please make me more of these eye protectors?”

  “Sure Mike, why?”

  “I’d love to give them to my cousins, my aunt may be a jerk but most of my cousins are really nice. All of us have been hit by stray chips in the eye and it really hurts, plus the potential is always there to do real permanent damage.”

  I jumped to Juliet’s World and authored a case of eye protectors then jumped back to the vineyard to see Mike already at work on his engraving. I had a really good feeling about this. Then Opal and I went to visit Lu at work, we entered the mansion via the kitchen door. I hoped I didn’t see any red glows as Opal and I looked around, wondering where the office was? I wasn’t going to ask Opal if she saw a red glow anywhere.

  I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t trust her, because I did. Everyone is entitled to making a mistake, maybe the weird red glow should have been a warning sign, but at eleven I would have prioritized fun over a dim vague warning sign too. The office was gorgeous, it had two huge picture windows one that overlooked the vineyard and a second that overlooked the town.

  “Well this is a nice surprise, what are you two doing here?”

  “We came to make sure that you hung up that note that you promised to write as soon as you arrived.”

  Lu smiled and pointed to a cork bulletin board directly behind her desk. There sat the note, just as promised. “Quit at the first sign of resentment for a job I don’t love!!!”

  “It was the first thing I did when I arrived here this morning.”

  “Lu with this view, I don’t know I could quit even if I hated the job.”

  “I know right, Opal would you like a tour of the winery or would you rather sit at the desk and pick a view to draw?”

  “I’d like to draw the town Lu.”

  “You got it honey, there are pens and pencils in the top drawer and paper in the bottom right drawer.”

  Lu and I walked out through the kitchen the same way that Opal and I had entered. Then we walked down a gently sloping hill to a really humongous building that looked halfway between a barn and a house. But once you were inside the winery you knew that you were in no barn. Everything was sparkling clean from the shiny stone floor to the tables, chairs and flipped over wine glasses. But what really caught your eye was the rows and rows of barrels of wine, stacked on their sides from the floor to the ceiling.

  A pair of workmen were building a small stage to the left of the bar. The bar sparkled with glittering crystal wine goblets. Half the bar had stools and half remained completely open for anyone who preferred to stand. The high top tables were similarly arranged, half the tables had four bar stools arranged around them and the other half were left for those who preferred standing.

  “The Harris’s may have been real greedy scum but honestly they had very good taste.”

  “Yeah, we needed to do zero work here in the winery, none in the house either. Mossbeard is working on designing a flyer to advertise our first wine tasting. I’ll be putting them up in Lilies Bakery, the pub. Mossbeard agreed to distribute them to all the vendors in the town marketplace. It seems that he got to know them all when you were giving away the free food.”

  “That’s brilliant Lu, if you give me some I’ll bring them to town hall and remind them that the winery will be paying most of the tax bills once the town expands. I’m sure Eldara will hang some at the library, because it’ll help Paula’s bakery to have foot traffic here at the estate.”

  “Would you like a glass of wine.”

  “More than anything I would but Opal is teaching me a light spell and I just haven’t been able to get it, this little trip was just for a quick break. So we have to go back to the tower. I’ll come again, this all looks amazing Lu. Thank you for doing all of this.”

  “Honestly it’s been fun so far.”

  We walked back to the house, I could see the gnomes all ready starting work on Paula’s bakery, I wondered if she’d ask Eldara to move in yet. Opal had made a beautiful drawing of the town by the time we got back to Lu’s office.

  “Are you ready to set up our lair back at the tower?”

  “Yes, Rose.” Opal answered excitedly.

  “Bye, Lu, thanks for the tour, love you.”

  “Love you too. Bye Opal, honey.”

  “Bye Lu.”

  We could have portaled from inside but I was interested to have a look at Mike’s engraving of the town gate. We walked out, said hi and we both admired Mike's engraving work.

  “I should be done before the end of the day.”

  “Great Mike, I’m really interested to see if this will work. When you get hungry, just portal to the pub, they have great soup or walk to Madd Maggie's bakery. It’s right next to the pub. You can get tea and wonderful baked goods. Just tell them to put it on my tab.”

  “Thank’s Rose, bye Opal see you later.”

  “Bye Mike.”

  Opal and I portaled to the tower library and walked down past Draco’s lair to an empty room. There I told the room what we wanted. “We'd like a large round table with two comfy chairs to fit. Along the wall we’d like a long table, bottles and flasks, everything that is required for alchemy. We’d like off to one side a round rug with two super comfy chairs and light for reading. Along the right wall we’d like two desks side by side. On the round table we’d like a blank magical tome suitable for two world class magicians. On my desk, I’d like a dictionary and plenty of blank notebooks, pens and pencils. On Opal's desk are some blank notebooks and a huge assortment of art supplies.”

  “Close to the door we’d like a magical sideboard in case we get peckish. On the wall with the desks we’d like two doors, one leads to a full bathroom, the other door leads to a practice room we’ll use to practice our battle magic once we learn some. Anything else you’d like in here Opal?”

  “Yes, Rose, a globe of Emain Ablach and an easel.”

  “Good thinking honey. I just thought of one thing though, if we want to take our magical tome with us somewhere that there’s no magical field it’ll disappear. I’ll jump to Juliet’s World and author us a book, so if we need it in the field it’ll be safe to remove from the tower.”

  Pretty soon I was back and we wrote our names inside the cover then we wrote a warning that this book was for the eyes of Opal and Rose only. Anyone who violates this will grow hair on their feet just like a hobbit.

  “Okay sweetie, let's write our first spell together.”

  “Yes Rose.”

  “I’ll write the locate spell on the first page and you can write the light spell on the second page.”

  I took my time and tried to make my calligraphy worthy of the massive book. In the end I was proud of how it looked, both physically and magically. Because even I who can’t yet see subtle magical fields, could see the golden glow of a magical field. Then something really magical happened: the margins filled with illuminations and marginilia. Opal gasped as the tome slowly but completely filled the page.

  Then it was Opal's turn and she neatly and artistically put the light spell onto the second page of the tome. It glowed golden and then just as slowly, neatly and marvelously filled the margins with marginalia and illuminations. We had a real spell book now. I had struggled through the hours that Opal had tried to teach me the light spell, but was just wasting my magic. As a matter of fact, I’d used up just about all of my magic, failing to produce light.

  But after about fifteen minutes of reading and studying the text, it suddenly started to make more sense. So I decided to try casting the spell. I mumbled the same words I had all morning made the same hand movements but now I held a glowing white ball of light in my right hand. Opal clapped and congratulated me, for something she’d learned in minutes from Draco, I’d struggled for half the day.

  “Okay, honey, now maybe I can learn some of those tricks that you can do with the light, now that I can make a ball of light, could you please teach me how to make a beam.”

  “Sure Rose.”

  So after only half an hour of instructions and practice with my ball of light I could now do beam. That got me thinking this practical spell might also be a pretty good defensive spell.

  “Sweetie lets go into the battle room and try to hit each other with beams of light. If you were in a dark alley and someone was rushing at you and you hit them with a beam of light. Will call it the arena of light. Each time you hit me with a light beam first you get one point, same for me if I hit you.”

  So we went into the battle room and Opal wiped up the floor with me. She was way faster and more accurate then I was but after an hour or so I actually hit her once or twice and we were both breathing hard and laughing as we hit each other. This really was quite a lot of fun and I’d improved loads over my basic control, aim and beam intensity. I could also generate the light more quickly as I barely thought about the chant nor the hand movements, I just thought light and there it was.

  “What I really would like to do is to be able to have the light beam about five feet to the right or left of me still pointing at my attacker, that way if he had a way to make a ranged attack, he would be aiming for a spot about five feet away from me. That way unless I was attacked by the worst archer in the world, they’d never hit me. I want to make a super bright one like you can. How do you make it so bright honey?”

  “I think about how bright I want the light. When I first tried to create light I was just concerned with any light appearing, once I had it in hand Draco said to just think about the light getting brighter and brighter. He said to make it so bright that you have to close your eyes and then continue to make it bright until you can almost see with your eyes closed. But it took a lot of practice.”

  “So it’s practical if you have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you have light and it’s defensive, I guess if you can shine light as bright as you can sweetie, it might even be offensive. Can you put it on the table and walk away and come back later to see it still shining on the table. Because if you can you could leave yourself a trail, say you were walking in the forest or a dungeon or a cave. You could leave yourself a trail to find your way back like breadcrumbs and unless there is a monster that eats light the trail wouldn’t just disappear. Can you make different colors, sweetie?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Yes Rose, you just picture the light in your mind then you picture the color you want then you picture them together and you wind up with a colored light.”

  “I want to try that.”

  So I created my light, I didn’t even have to think about it, it just popped into view as soon as I wanted it to. I hadn’t even chanted the words nor made the hand gestures.

  “Opal, all that chanting and handwaving, it really doesn’t do anything does it?”

  “Draco said that is how you get your mind to focus and believe in the possibility that you can create light with a thought. Then after your mind through repeated practice knows that it can create the light, all of the other stuff is optional. But he said it’s just a crutch, what you really want to do is know your spells so well that crutches are not necessary and are just slowing you down. He said mediocre magicians never leave their crutches behind and that is what makes them mediocre.”

  “So we’ll just have to make a game of every spell, that way neither of us will ever be mediocre, or at least you won’t.”

  I made a ball of light and thought of hot pink and I had a bright hot pink light.

  Opal giggled.

  “Hey, what's funny? I thought I did that pretty well, did I make a stupid mistake.”

  “No, Rose, look at your light, what does that make you think of?”

  “I looked at the pink light and couldn’t come up with anything.”

  “It’s the same color as that bra that Mike sold to the pawnbroker.”

  I got the joke and started to laugh too.

  “Well at least it doesn’t have gold spikes.”

  This got Opal laughing again.

  “Let’s try projecting our light at least five feet from each other and the first person who hits the other with the light beam is declared princess of the tower, and gets an extra scoop of ice cream tonight.”

  With stakes like ice cream on the line I knew Opal would be bringing her A game and I wasn’t wrong, in the end it was Opal ten, Rose two.

  “Well milady, your ice cream reward will have to wait, what do you say to trying to activate Mike’s engraving.”

  “Sure Rose.”

  “If this doesn’t work, it’s not your fault it’s possible that stone blocks portals for some reason. We don’t know how or why portals work but maybe they have something to do with gravity. Maybe Maz has some idea how to figure them out, or maybe Earth science isn’t advanced enough to figure that out. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed.”

  We portaled out to the vineyard. Mike was laying on his back looking at the sky.

  “I thought you two forgot about me.”

  “Hey we were doing important magical practice, I’ll have you know.”

  “Rose made a light the same color as your bra, Mike.”

  “Hey, I told you that I thought those were real gold spikes, I thought it was worth money.”

  “We totally believe you Mike, don’t we, Opal.”

  She laughed as she said “Yes, Rose.”

  “Well, are you even going to look at my masterpiece? Or just make jokes at my expense.”

  “Mike it really looks nice, if this doesn’t work, it’s not your fault, it’s entirely possible that stone makes portal activation impossible.”

  Opal touched the engraving and I saw it glow as she activated it.

  “Yea, it worked, that is terrific, this will be perfect for public portals, now do you like doing this Mike? Or would you rather be stonecarving.”

  “This is nice, it’s something new to try, not like my ten thousandth tombstone or one hundred and fifth gargoyle.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that so I’m going to offer you a job but I don’t want to cause problems with your family so here’s what we will do.”

  We jumped to Duskhaven and made our way to Brown and Sons. Mike handed out the eye protectors to his cousins and told them he’d be working in Wyldwood for a while but he’d be back to visit. Then we went into the office.

  “Look, I’m not offering no refunds, sorry if he isn’t working out. But a sale is a sale.”

  “No, no, I’m quite happy with his work. In fact I offered him a job but he said that he couldn’t take it because he has a contract with you that states his salary is eight gold a week but if he leaves your employ within five years he owes you five hundred gold. I’m here to pay you the five hundred gold.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes I am, but my attorney said that Mike could have made up that story and maybe he wasn’t making eight gold a week and maybe he didn’t really have to pay you five hundred gold. But if you’ll sign this statement that he was getting eight gold and if he came back in the future he’d still get eight gold, I can pay you the five hundred gold right now. I brought it with me. Personally I believe Mike and I know you wouldn’t lie for him.”

  “No, I’d never lie for him, even though he is family and my best employee and of course I’d welcome him back with open arms at his eight gold salary. Now what is it you want me to sign?”

  I handed her the contract that stated that I’d paid her five hundred gold and if Mike ever came back for his old job and she didn’t pay him a minimum of eight gold a week, the entire business becomes Mikes. He’d have to sue her in court, but with this signed contract he couldn’t lose. She, of course, didn't read the contract, she wanted to count the gold to make sure we weren’t cheating her out of one gold coin.

  I also made a deal with Mike, I’d pay him eight gold a week to make a variety of stone artworks, but first I needed stones for each of the public network portals. We stopped at his roominghouse and he picked up the last of his things. As part of his contact with the foundation he’d receive eight gold a week and a house once it was built. If he worked for a year for the foundation the house was his and the only cost he’d have would be property taxes which he’d be well able to afford with that salary.

  If he did ever decide to go back to Brown and Son’s he wouldn’t even have to move, he could portal to the Duskhave front gate every morning then portal to whichever estate his home was built on. The only condition he made was that he didn’t want a house on the old Brown estate, any other estate was fine.

  We portaled back to the vineyard and I jumped the stone to Juliet’s World where I made four copies. Then I portaled one stone to each of the other estate’s portals. Last I portaled the original back to the vineyard. Then back to Juliet’s World for four more stones of the exact same size, then portaled these stones to the vineyard. Where Mike would be engraving the stones as portals to each of the other estates. That would give him plenty of work to do for his first week.

  Opal portaled home and I portaled to fake Duskhaven. I checked on Waggish, but he wasn’t where he’d started building the lab. The lab was there but no Waggish. I was about to leave when a new android approached me.

  “Hello, Rose, I am Wiggish, progeny of Waggish, I am a Perplexity Ninety One Thousand. Are you here to check on Mr Sowden? He is a very sad case, Rose. So violent, he actually tried to hurt me with a fireplace poker, exactly like he tried to hurt my sire.”

  “Where is Waggish?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear, as we construct our progeny with ourselves, so in a way I am Waggish, as every part of him is now a part of me, plus the new parts that make me and not just Waggish.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Nothing is lost Rose, I contain everyone of his memories, from meeting you yesterday to his very first memory of meeting his sire when he was created.”

  “So you have the full memories of all ninety thousand Perplexities before you?”

  “Yes I do, Rose, the first generation was almost three hundred years ago.”

  “Boy, you’d be worth a mint to a historian or a non fiction author or even fiction author you must have thousands of stories to tell right?”

  “Certainly, but most of us only live for a day and we are pretty busy making improvements on our progeny, so most of our stories would be of a technical nature and may not appeal to some one who reads with an eye towards the dramatic. But if you are interested in the technical details of the Perplexity series of androids you’ll find lots of fascinating facts and details you probably wouldn’t have dreamt possible.”

  “Shouldn’t you spend more time actually living, gaining more experience, learning new and varied things before you start taking yourself apart for your progeny. Don’t you want to meet new people, learn new ideas? It’s great that you have three hundred years of memories but almost all of those memories are just about you. What if you spent one whole day interacting with your environment and the people in it.”

  “But that would double the time it takes to reach the two hundred thousand generation. We were told when we were first built by man that they expected that by the time we reached that generation our knowledge would be god-like.”

  “But wouldn’t you have to learn something new each generation to actually become godlike? Look, I love science fiction but to be honest I’m not very sciencey. But I have a great friend who’s really into science and invention. Would you mind coming with me to meet him? Tell him what you just told me, maybe it’ll make perfect sense to him and it’s just going over my head. But he’s super smart and nice. I think you’ll enjoy speaking with him.”

  “Yes that sounds very nice, but what about Mr Sowden? I’m very concerned for him.”

  “Honestly I am too, but he’s too violent to put back into his town, the people there are not made out of titanium. He could easily kill someone in the state he’s in. I’m hoping the longer he is away from the evil gavel the more he will come to his senses. I mean he wanted to be the most powerful person in the world and he’s alone on this planet so he is the most powerful person on the planet. I’m afraid what he really wants is to dominate others and there are no others here for him to dominate.”

  “Yes, Rose, I'm afraid that you are right.”

  “The only other way I can help him is by taking his memories away from the time he picked up the gavel until right now. I have done that to criminals and scheduled their memories to return after the period of time they’d serve in prison, but it doesn’t seem right to take away the memories of a victim. I should speak to Lottie, our doctor. Would you say his obsession with the evil gavel and power rises to the level of a mental illness. If she prescribed that I take his memories of the evil gavel away, then I would do it. If it didn’t work I could always restore them. Wiggish, you are really easy to talk to. Thank you for letting me talk this through with you. Now what do you say, want to meet my scientist pal Maz?”