The afternoon went better. The work on the book seemed to move faster, as if the author had finally decided to cooperate. He shifted from giving examples to explaining those examples, which meant more technical, ten-dollar academic words I had to doublecheck for meaning and spelling. At least he reused most of them, so the slog got easier with repetition.

  My memory...and my spell checker...picked up a few typos in the manuscript. The convoluted sentence structure, though, hung around like a stubborn stain. I wasn’t sure how much to modify without sanding down his academic voice too much, or whether I should just let future readers...more likely his students...parse it all out themselves.

  I tried to be patient, waiting for Carol...or MathMamm...to figure something out and get back to me. Only after an hour did I remember I’d planned to talk to the GRA people at the convention center. I pushed ahead to a reasonable stopping point and focused on reaching it.

  About forty-five minutes later, I did. I hit save, created a backup copy in two places out of habit, and leaned back, thinking through what I could even tell them. Beyond the basics, my mind went blank. So, I made a quick bathroom stop, cleaned up and geared up before heading downtown.

  As I pulled into the parking lot, a stray thought hit me. Maybe I could rate my own parking spot? Get some perks of the job along with the stipend they kept insisting was coming.

  The guard at the door nodded but didn’t open it for me. “I guess I’m not that important anymore,” I mentally muttered to myself as I walked inside.

  Dr. Peters was on his phone, pacing along the wall when I got there. I scanned the room for someone else I knew. AnthroPaul was there, hunched over a laptop and surrounded by half-empty coffee cups. Easy choice.

  “Hey, Paul,” I said as I approached. “I need your help, and if you know anyone who understands fluid dynamics or string and knot theory, their help too.”

  He looked up, smiling and puzzled at once. “What’s up?”

  “Need you to get me to the right people. Folks studying MANA itself, not just how to use it. You know anyone handy?”

  “Fluid dynamics...no,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “But I know who to ask. Our main MANA person isn’t here. She left at noon for classes. What’s going on that you need us?”

  “Uh...” I hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain yesterday without sounding like an idiot. I sat beside him.

  “I tried something new working with MANA yesterday and...it got out of hand. But I learned a few things and wanted to talk to someone here about them. I’m working with an EU math professor, but I’d like more info to go on.”

  “Math professor? Why? Outside of how much MANA something takes, why go to math?”

  “Because I asked her about an editing job I’m doing and it spiraled from there. Turns out she’s been working with you guys.” I gave him Carol’s real and game names.

  “Oh, her. She was here yesterday talking to the math nerds about class progression algorithms. They ran comparison computations. Apparently, it goes by Meta-class.”

  “Meta-class? What’s that?”

  “All the warrior types together, mage types together, healer types...groups like that,” he said. “Then there are variations within them. The more standard the class, the simpler the progression. The more obscure, the weirder it gets.”

  Paul suddenly shouted, “Charlie! Get your ass over here. Mana Mage needs your expertise.”

  The guy who answered looked like a quintessential forever grad student: bald head, reddish beard and mustache, bushy red eyebrows, jeans and a green EU sweatshirt. He stuck out his hand when he reached me.

  I shook it.

  “What’s up?” he asked, dragging over a chair, that scraped on the floor, to join us.

  “I’m trying to explain build progression to Will here,” Paul said. “He’s got questions I can’t answer. Gave him the basics.”

  Charlie nodded at me, then picked up where Paul left off.

  “The basic non-tank Warrior or magic user is the simplest build. Yours is more complicated once you get out of the basics. Dual classes are even harder to synergize. Mentalists too. The system seems to slow them down for some reason.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Some builds are overpowered,” he said. “If you run the progression out into the 20s for everyone, things shift. Shift a lot. We’re guessing the fives and tens are breakpoints, but not fixed ones.”

  “Explain, please. I’ve got an MFA, not a math degree. It doesn’t mean math for amatures.” They both laughed.

  “You did well with your initial build,” he continued. “Those notes you took helped us understand how custom builds influence results. You said you were an old tabletop gamer. That explains how you approached it. People who only play video games usually don’t think about the numbers.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I did some video games too,” I said. “Less math...more Elitist Jerks.”

  “Right. Elitist Jerks. Thank you for their archived site. Their methods helped us even though the systems differ.”

  “Back on track, please. How does this affect how I cast and manipulate MANA...beyond the obvious?”

  “MANA is Intelligence-based,” Charlie said. “Higher Intelligence means better manipulation. Buffs help too. I heard you made an umbrella out of it during the storm yesterday?”

  “Not sure where you heard that, but yeah. Hollow cone anchored to my cane. Most complicated shape I’ve done. I keep putting points into MANA Shaping. Each point helps. I can make circular shapes and rectangular SHIELDs to box spawns in. Then AOE them down. Unless there’s a Shaman. I hate those things.”

  Charlie and Paul both laughed. “Got hit by one,” Paul said. “Damn those hurt. Tanks say it gets easier. I’m not a Tank. Don’t want to be.”

  “Can’t say I do either,” I said. “But I do it if I have to. Those CURSEs get easier to take the more they hit you. You just push through the pain and keep going. And bring a Healer. Even a Level 1 Healer can Heal the 5 points of damage the spell does. I think they’ll get stronger eventually.”

  “We’re off track,” I continued. “Is MANA matter, energy, both, or something else? Can it flow and change shape? I know it can when I cast SHIELDs. It feels like you set a shape parameter instead of manually forcing it into shapes.”

  Charlie nodded. “Yes. We’ve been calling it a polymorphic liquid. It changes shape with applied energy and holds it as long as there’s energy supplied to power it.”

  “And that energy is?” I asked.

  “MANA,” they said in unison.

  “So, it’s self-powering, self-shaping, omnipresent physical energy that flows into fixed shapes or none at all?”

  They both stared at me. Then both wrote it down...Paul typing, Charlie scribbling on a notepad he pulled out of his back pants pocket after stealing a pen from Paul’s pocket protector.

  I propped my forehead in my hand. A quiet facepalm. I waited until they stopped writing.

  “Why me, O Lord, why me?” Was my question to the sky, the universe, and everything.

  I waited for them to be done.

  When they finally looked ready, I asked, “Ready for the background and the hard questions?”

  They nodded, pen and fingers on the keyboard at the ready.

  “Yesterday I thought I was working outside the Game. A guy from California came to learn how to cultivate Mana. He knelt in my yard, in the rain, to prove he was worthy of my teaching him how to do it. He figured I was the one to teach him. He was wrong.”

  "The guy was a third-generation martial artist. Black belt. Runs a dojo and reads cultivation stories. He has a Martial Artist game build. Mostly stock, but some custom work. He was kneeling out in my yard in the pouring rain to get my attention. It was so I’d consider him worthy to teach. It’s an old martial arts trope.”

  Charlie looked blank. Paul looked like he was trying to remember something.

  “Cultivation...isn’t that an oriental thing? Superpowered people? Chi stuff?” Paul asked. “I think I read something about that and maybe saw some anime.”

  “Right. Chi, not MANA. Chi moves through meridians...acupuncture lines...and strengthens the body and powers special powers. Big in Chinese and Japanese fiction. GameLit.”

  “So, this guy shows up kneeling in the rain in your yard to get your attention?” Paul asked. “Let me guess. You didn’t want to do it.”

  “You nailed it. First try.” I said, smiling. “I gave him a couple of tests I made up on the spot. He passed.”

  Charlie wrote that down, letting Paul question me.

  “What tests?”

  “First, the old three cup shell game. Blaze learned the swaps. She put a charged MANA BATTERY under one cup and two uncharged ones under the others. This was outside on the porch on a tray table. Just out of the rain.”

  “How’d he do?” Charlie asked, pen ready.

  “He got the first one. We think he tracked the right cup. Blaze was doing her first run at the game. Then he did it with his eyes closed. Took longer, but he got it.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t cheat?”

  “As much as Blaze and I could be. We gave him the battery for getting the second one right. Martial Artists use MANA for some of their moves, just like other WARRIORS and other classes do, so he can use it. They just regenerate slowly. He’ll have to find someone who can refill it.”

  Both men nodded.

  “Then,” I continued, “I told him to put the cup with the charged battery on a Ley Line that goes through the building across the street. Then he would pass the third and final test.”

  “That wasn’t fair,” Charlie snapped.

  “Agreed. It wasn’t meant to be. Mages can’t feel Ley Lines. I couldn’t until I took DETECT MANA. Now if I walk through one, I feel it faintly. My natural regen is maybe ten percent faster or a bit more if I’m standing on a line or intersection. Needs real measurement.”

  I didn’t feel any difference in the Dungeon, but we weren’t looking for it the last times we went in. I’ll test for it next time.”

  “That’s not much faster,” Paul said.

  “For me it is compared to low-level players. But GRA needs to test it, not me.” I looked from his bald head to Charlie’s hairy one. “My head doesn’t look like an egg.”

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  Paul leaned in. “So, what happened in his last test?”

  I leaned back, arms and ankles crossed. “He passed it.”

  “What!” Charlie bellowed. People around us on both sides looked up.

  They literally stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Then at us.

  “He passed,” I repeated. “He remembered where Blaze looked when she learned DETECT MANA and TRANSFER MANA. She had leftover points and was close to leveling. Now she can fill her own MANA BATTERYs and her agent's.”

  “He tried to feel where she’d looked. That didn’t work, so he used MANA with his martial arts technique and tried to gauge how fast his MANA returned. He’s tuned in to his body from years of training.”

  “He felt the difference? Interesting.” Paul asked, typing rapidly.

  “Yes. He stood near the Ley Line that runs through my garage. He was close enough that I gave it to him. Close was about an inch.”

  “This is incredible,” Charlie said. “Means everyone can eventually feel and use MANA.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far...yet,” I said. “But it might be possible. I assume it gets easier with the right build and higher levels. Fives and tens might be thresholds like everything else.”

  They exchanged glances and made more notes.

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