TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 29

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Kal quickly discovered the benefits of a nice hot soak in the large master bath after a frustrating day of research and study. This was made more enjoyable by the slime-girl often joining him as she could move through the tower's plumbing and was able to tell when he was drawing a bath. Though she could move around the tower freely, Cyrene frequently stayed in the tubs since they could be magically warmed.

He was enjoying a soak and thinking about his flight rune when he reached out with the telekinesis cantrip and summoned a square of leather sitting with his clothes. It held the spell Kithana showed him yesterday, and while not a perfect copy it was close enough for the spell to work.

Setting it on the edge of the tub, he placed a finger on it and powered the rune. The sphere formed and hovered above the leather. Well... it was mostly spherical, more egg-shaped from where he didn't copy it perfectly.

"What is it you are supposed to do?" he asked the spell. It wouldn't be so frustrating if he didn't feel like the answer was on the tip of his tongue.

Sighing heavily, he was about to cut power to the rune when he noticed something odd. Water had collected on the piece of leather. Even as he watched, two droplets joined to form one larger one. While it was quite warm in the room the leather shouldn't have been cold enough to form condensation on it. Confused, he dipped his head down and saw the air shimmered slightly between the rune and the active spell, but that was normal. What wasn't normal were the tiny flecks of light he saw every so often. Whatever made the flashes and was extremely tiny, probably smaller than a speck of dust, and happened in rhythmic bursts, moving downward as they flickered.

Kal yawned, the long day was catching up with him. As he opened his eyes he saw a flurry of the little flashes.

"Wait..." he said aloud. A second later, another brief, shimmering rain fell from the 'sphere'.

Leaning forward, he gently blew on the spell and a shower of noticeably bigger sparkles followed. Meanwhile, the droplets on the leather continued to get bigger.

"It's my breath?" With his other hand he dipped a finger in the water that had collected. It was cold. It was very, very cold.

"Cyrena!" he called out, looking at the bathwater.

A watery head popped up on the other side of the large tub. "Yes, Kal?"

"I need to do an experiment and I need some pure water. I don't want to hurt you."

He thought she gave him a confused look, but it was hard to tell when her face was mostly transparent. A second later the water level in the tub dropped as her body became darker and denser. By the time she was done he was shocked at how much of his bath was actually her.

Taking the leather strip from the side of the bath, he flipped it over and held it face down above the water before activating it. A slight crackling noise came from below the rune and Kal quickly pulled it away. An egg-shaped piece of ice gently bobbed where the spell had taken effect.

"I'm guessing from the look on your face that bath time is over?" asked Cyrene.

Kal nodded and stood up. As he went to step out the slime said, "Wait a moment," before her body flowed forward, crashing into him like a wave and enveloping him. When Cyrene's body receded he was standing outside the tub, his body completely dry.

Taking a moment to get his bearings, he yelled, "Thanks!" before throwing a robe on for his quick run down to the library. Bursting through the door to the bedroom, he skidded to a halt at the surprised looks of Sera and Senshu, both of whom were naked and lying on the master bedroom's extremely large bed.

"Both of you tonight?" he asked, momentarily distracted. Before they could answer, he held up his hands and started carefully circling the room while facing the women as though they were vicious predators. "Hold that thought, there's something I need to go check. I'll be right back," he said as he made his way around to the door then dashed out without waiting for a response.

The serpents on Sera's head hissed quietly in annoyance as the mage disappeared out the door. "Two women naked and waiting for him and he has something else that's more important," she growled.

Senshu gently pushed the gorgon onto her back, "This just gives us more time to get ready for him," said the six-armed lamia laying down next to her. One hand lightly brushed its fingers along Sera's inner thigh as another traced rings around a breast, spiraling up toward the gorgon's nipple. The top arm on that side reached out and turned the Sera's face toward her before leaning down and kissing her lightly on the lips. "I'll make sure you don't get bored."

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Kithana was waiting for him at the door to the library. "Cyrene told me you discovered something important," she said, moving off to the side to give him access.

"It's not anything you don't already know, why are you here?"

"To make sure you are on the right path. If you aren't, then I'm here to nudge you in the right direction."

"That's hardly what it's felt like." He said tossing the leather on the table and getting another similar sized piece off a stack by the magical ink.

"I'm being a teacher, I can be a friend once you've learned this spell," she said with a wave toward the flight rune laid out in the middle of the table.

Kal chuckled as he sat down, "Friend? From Ikuno and Ria's description, I'm surprised you haven't demanded a turn in bed with me." A drop of ink floated from the well and he began forming it into the rune before setting it into the leather.

"Not for lack of wanting, the taste of human cum is exquisite." Kal looked up and stared at the bluntness of her statement. "Where do you think Sera and the rest get it from. Their lust and love of human seed were patterned after me," she said holding her arms out.

"But... how?"

"I may show you later, but I want to wait and see if Sapphire comes back to the tower to meet you. Having her here will make explaining much easier."

"Why is this 'Sapphire' so important?"

"She's the first of the earth golems."

He was about to power both the runes when Kithana stopped him and quickly fixed the one he was messing around with in the bath.

"They are the same spell," he quietly mused, looking at the flows of magic. "But this one is adding heat into the ball while this one makes it cold. But it doesn't make it cold as much as stops everything inside."

Kithana watched quietly as Kal talked through his thoughts. The human was catching on quickly, but he certainly wasn't Prentas. The sprite frowned for a moment. Maybe she wasn't being fair. Prentas had over a decade of experience with magic before they met at the tower while the man in front of her had been tilling fields up until a few years ago. He wasn't nearly as sharp as the tower's former owner and she doubted that he would ever master the magic of magnetism. But now that he knew what the spell was for, Kal was finding a path to the solution faster than she expected.

Kal's eyes flicked between the two spells. "'There is no cold, only the absence of heat.'" He sat there for a few long minutes contemplating the phrase. "This one doesn't make it cold, it just takes away the heat." Looking down at the two runes, the mage frowned, "Then why is this one so much more complicated if they are just doing opposite things? This one, I add magic and it gets bigger and hotter. But this one, I add magic and it does... more nothing? It would make more sense if it stripped the heat away; instead, it just stops everything." He stared closely at the ring around the sphere where the spell took effect, "What am I missing?"

"Magic, by its very nature, does something," said the sprite. "You take the energy from the world around you and make it do something based upon the spell you choose."

"But to freeze something I need the magic to do nothing? No, that doesn't make sense." He thought for a moment, "When I excite water it turns to steam, when I slow it down it turns to ice, so I need the magic to slow the water to a stop."

"Which is much more complicated than it sounds," said Kithana.

Kal looked at the two runes. "I can see it now. The glyphs in the flame rune are in this one too but it's hard to tell what is going on. Wait... there are two glyphs here. That's even more confusing."

"There is a rock in your hand. Another one is flying toward your head and will kill you if it hits. What do you do?"

"Throw the rock in my hand at the one coming towards me."

"Your aim is true. What happens?"

"They hit then both of them stop and fall to the ground."

"Falling to the ground is irrelevant."

"The magic acts to stop the air by pushing against whatever air is in the opposite direction while on the flame side it pushed with the direction."

Kithana nodded, "Prentas called it constructive and destructive interactions."

"But why all the complexity? If I'm reading this right it warms everything to a specific point then uses a second spell to counteract the first. No... this can't be right. There must be a simpler way to do this."

"There is, but we can talk about that tomorrow, you have two women waiting for you in bed. They've gotten close with all the time you've spent up here since you arrived, and I know tonight is important to them.

Kal took his fingers off the pieces of leather and both spells vanished. "That's just mean," he said, glaring at the sprite.

"Priorities. Now get going, we have a lot more to discuss than I expected tomorrow. Also, what I said earlier got me all worked up so if you don't get going Senshu and Sera will be out of luck because I'm going to fuck you instead."

"Fair enough," he said rising from his seat. "I'll see you tomorrow."

As the door closed behind him and left Kithana by herself, the sprite growled, "You could have at least acted like you wanted to stay for a second."