Frostbound

Chris

Marcus and I walked around the recently cleared area and checked it over one more time. When I had asked the man where he wanted me to build the Communication Formation, I hadn't expected him to choose here.

I wasn't really expecting anything, but inside one of the rooms of his Manor wasn't it. Outside somewhere or hidden away, maybe, but not just inside one of the rooms.

Well, it's his choice. It isn't that weird.

"This will take a while. A few days at least." I said so he didn't feel the urge to stay and watch. Having an audience would just be weird.

"That's fine. I need to catch up on things anyway. You're welcome to call on Gregory for anything you need." Marcus waved at the nicely dressed butler and made a swift exit after saying so.

He had a lot to do, and I didn't blame him for leaving. Abigail would work through most of the backlog that accumulated while we were gone, but there would still be a stack of it waiting for my return.

We had been gone for five months after all.

The cold felt good, but it wasn't the same as home. Sure, it was frigid here in November, but not the devastating frigid of home. The snow was a joy to see again, but even that was hard to get excited about.

After Marcus and the butler left, Gabriel was the only one remaining in the room. He was intrigued by the Formation and wanted to watch me put it down.

"Not going out with Austin again?" I poked at him, remembering the state he was in when we first left the City on boats. He and Austin had been in rough shape.

"No, thank you. He's... he's probably out there going even harder after his evolution." Gabriel said.

That was probably an understatement. There were honest to god Brewers in the City and they had they had actual ale. Austin was most likely off somewhere seeing how many tankards it took for him to feel anything.

With company, of course. It would be remiss of him if he did so alone.

"Alright," I clapped, "Hand me that bag over there."

Inside the bag were all the tools I would need. I hadn't anticipated needing my engraving tools during the trip so I had to borrow a few from the enchanters here. With Marcus giving them a stern look while I asked to borrow them, they were more than happy to lend a hand.

The rest of the bag was filled with the materials I would need. Mana Conductive metals that would function as the inlay for the Formation. Technically, I could just carve it into the wooden floor, but after a few uses, the tremendous amount of mana would burn through it and cause the Formation to fail.

Even the Metal wouldn't hold up forever, but it would last a lot longer than the wood and could be replaced much easier.

Engraving a Formation didn't always require tools, but in order to get the metal into the right shape and to fill out the grooves smoothly and entirely, it needed to be melted down like solder.

Even with my many gifts, being able to melt things down was not one of them. Which required tools. Having an assistant who could do so was another option, but a modified soldering gun worked just the same.

Studying the Formation that Fitzwallace gave me was eye-opening. Being able to look at the Formation and the Message Stone at the same time was an unexpected boon.

The way that they were so different, but accomplished the same goal, was remarkable. Having the notes involved for how his enchanters came up with the Formation made puzzling out how it worked that much easier.

I could have done it without the notes, and with just the final product, but it would have taken me a lot longer and an insane amount of effort. [Beginner Runic Language] worked based on the knowledge I already had and drew connections from that.

The skill would help me understand Runes similar to ones I already understood. So in the case of the Communication Formation, it wasn't very helpful because I had no background in any of the Runes used.

The notes described some of them, but others were left mysteriously unmentioned. State secrets or something?

It didn't matter in the long run because the other books we purchased filled in the gaps. After reading up and getting a base understanding, [Beginner Runic Language] worked a lot better.

I started by drawing the formation in chalk. It would help lay out what I wanted to do without damaging the floor permanently.

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"What's this Rune do?" Gabriel asked.

He knew some Runes, but he didn't have the skill to help understand them. His understanding came from brute memorization and asking me all the time.

"This is the Connection Rune." It was the first one I drew. "It establishes a link between the Formation I'm putting down and the one I will put down in Frostheim."

"What's all the stuff around it?"

"Well, Connection can mean a lot of things. Physically adjoined, two things related to one another, and whatnot. These extra knots help regulate which meaning of the Rune I want. They change mana in a way that it knows what meaning I'm going for."

"So they're like context clues?"

"...That... wasn't how I pictured it, but the description works. I thought of them more like design parameters or fixed inputs." I said. I thought of Formations like computer codes while he thought of them like written-out text. They way they were interpreted varied to everyone.

"The additional knots, connections, and pathways are where all the inefficiencies of a Formation are usually found. Well, the theoretical inefficiencies at least. There's always mucking up the physical engraving and material defects that can cause problems." I said.

Gabriel looked at the growing jumble of lines and intersections with a skeptical eye. "This doesn't look very efficient."

"Normally, I would say looks can be deceiving, but in this case, you're absolutely right." I chuckled, "They had to be uber specific in order to get the right connection that a bunch of added knots for regulation had to be added. Half of these wouldn't be needed if you only needed to connect to one Formation. The additions are for being able to choose which other paired Formation to connect to."

The first time I laid out the Formation on the road and took a look using [Formations Mana Flows], I nearly cried. It wasted so much mana that it was unbelievable. If you had to power the thing manually, it would take nearly a dozen people for it to work.

I did my best to tweak it, but there wasn't much I could do without rebuilding the Formation from the ground up, which wasn't that high a priority. That was pushed off to a later problem and would take a lot more study of these kinds of Runes.

It wasn't like I was used to shoving them on gear for a few years by now, like I was with other Runes.

"This part is all for finding and securing the Connection between two Formations. Imagine it like a phone call, almost, except it doesn't get routed through cell towers and satellites." I described as I continued putting down the Formation.

"This part is for turning sound into something that can traverse that Connection. Now–"

"Wait, what?" Gabe interrupted.

"Phones use a microphone to catch sound and turn it into electrical signals. This... does the same thing, except it's magical instead of electrical." I said, "It... imprints on the mana the information you want to say."

I pointed toward the Sound Rune and the knots around it that worked to capture the sound waves. It was... above my understanding how they did that.

"My understanding is that it sends that 'imprinted' mana through the Connection and unwraps it and plays it on the other side." I described while pointing toward the part of the Formation that would 'unwrap' the mana.

That was where it was a little fuzzy. I tried to think of it in terms of a computer sending and receiving data, but that didn't really work. The metaphor broke apart because magic and mana could do a lot of things computers couldn't.

"Like a voice recorder?" He asked.

"Essentially."

"Can this be intercepted? Like the Message Stone can?" Gabe questioned.

It was good that he was thinking that way. He had poked his head in and tried to wrestle the Message Stone away from me but I shot him down. We did look at it together a few times but he didn't have the same understanding of Runes as I did.

If the Stone had been enchanted magically, instead of runically, I would've been in the same boat he was. Spells were far from being my strong suit.

It was during those times that I described what the Stone did, like I was doing now for the Formation. Even though it was Rune-based, he still liked this kind of thing, and I saw no harm in indulging him.

The Message Stone sent out a blast of mana in all directions like a radio would. It took a specific Rune on the other end that could 'receive' that blast, but that could easily be captured by others and decrypted.

Like key fobs. The specific frequency used in key fobs to unlock a car could be captured and figured out quite easily if they were in range when they were used.

"Not in the same way, but yes," I said, "This forges a Connection that could be tapped into, but I doubt anyone will have the ability to do so any time soon. The hardest part would be finding the connection in the first place, which isn't exactly visible. Plus, any disturbance in the Connection would cause problems. More mana would be needed to stabilize it, and that would be a tell-tale sign someone was listening in."

The entire process took a little longer with Gabriel asking questions throughout the work, but that wasn't a huge deal. A day extra wasn't going to kill anyone. Not when we had actual beds to sleep in and we weren't out in the woods.

People partied and drank like fish the first night, but I wasn't that into it. I was more focused on making sure the Formation got done. I would indulge when we finally made it home.

Austin tried to get me to go out, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Gabriel joined him one night, but after struggling to stand up straight the next morning, he didn't join him again.

Engraving the Formation took nearly a complete day of continuous work and was the most grueling task. Luckily, I made it through without any critical mistakes or any that I couldn't fix.

The Formation flashed in completion, and Gabriel gave a round of applause.

"You get anything?" He asked.

I had heard the chime and knew I had, "A level."

"What does that make you now, eleven away?"

"Yeah, eleven away," I said with a nod.

Austin wasn't the only one to evolve during our journey. A few members of the Order did so as well, along with some of Marcus's people. No one else in our Family was ready, but some were drawing close.

Gabriel himself was nearing the day as he was already capped in both Class and Profession, but wanted to try a few more things before pulling the trigger.

All in all, we stayed in the Twins for four days before breaking off and making our way home. Without Marcus and his army with us, we were down to only a few hundred instead of the nearly thousand we had before.

Marcus sent us off with some fresh supplies, and the group were more than eager to get back home. We made great time even though the snow and weather tried to hinder us. All of us were accustomed to the Winters here, and we had prepared accordingly.

Having a plethora of Ice and Snow affinities to clear the way also helped. Our first time up here, it was only me and a paltry few others who had the skills to do so.