- Chapter 075 -

  Threads of Force

  The air had teeth. Winter had finally claimed the upper slopes of the Iron-Tooth, stripping the last of the autumn warmth from the rock. Mark adjusted his scarf, the wool scratching against his neck, and leaned into the incline. His breath puffed in white clouds, vanishing into the grey morning.

  They were a strange procession. Dawn walked point, her stride loose and easy, clearly enjoying the cold. Taz was visible for the first time in weeks, a sleek ghost of white and grey fur bouncing between boulders and trees. Carl trudged beside Mark, a large canvas bag slung over his shoulder, grumbling about the cold. Tori brought up the rear, clutching a bag of food like it was a shield against the wilderness.

  "It's quiet up here," Mark said, his voice cutting through the wind. "That's good."

  "You asked for quiet," Dawn said over her shoulder. "This is the old shepherds' path. No one comes up here unless they're lost, hunting or trying to hide a body."

  Mark nodded, hope Dawn’s last note was more humorous. He shifted the weight of his own backpack. It wasn't heavy with supplies, but with notebooks. His library of stolen, dangerous magic that he had no right to possess. He had to tell them. The secret was becoming a liability.

  "Still haven't forgiven Sam for the crackers," Carl muttered, adjusting his load.

  "Why didn't you challenge him?" Mark asked, grateful for the distraction. "A duel for honor and biscuits. Seems like the sort of thing you lot do."

  Dawn snorted. "Duel Sam? No chance!"

  "Why not?" Mark asked. "He's Quartz. You're both Garnet."

  "Tier doesn't matter with Sam," Carl said, a shudder running through his bulky frame. "He's a terror. A nightmare to spar with. He doesn't fight fair. He fights to win."

  "He threw a wrench at me once," Dawn added. "During a friendly spar. Who brings a wrench to a knife fight?"

  "Sam does," Carl said grimly. "He always wins. He uses anything. The environment, his tools, your own frustration. Fighting him is just... humiliating."

  They reached a small plateau, a flat expanse of rock sheltered by a sheer cliff face. A frozen stream cut through the center.

  "This is it," Dawn said, stopping. She whistled, and Taz bounded to her side, rubbing his massive head against her leg.

  Mark stopped, catching his breath. He looked at them. His team. His friends.

  Dawn moved with practiced efficiency, gathering dry wood from under the shelter of the cliff and coaxing a fire to life with a spark from her flint. The flames crackled, a warm orange heart in the grey morning. Tori raised a hand, and the biting wind suddenly died around them, deflected by an invisible barrier. She sighed with relief and sat on a fallen log, pulling her cloak tight.

  Carl dropped his bag with surprising care, settling it on a flat rock. "Nice and private," he grunted. "Good place to test the new toy later. After we deal with... whatever this is."

  Mark lowered himself onto a stone, his hip protesting the cold. He unzipped his backpack. He didn't speak. He just reached in and pulled out three notebooks at random. He passed one to Tori, one to Carl, and tossed the third to Dawn.

  "What's this?" Tori asked, opening the cover. She flipped through the pages, her brow furrowing. "Ritual designs. Complex ones." She looked up, a slight edge to her voice. "What are these for, Mark? You can't even use magic."

  Carl was already deep in his book, tracing a line with a thick finger. "I recognize a few of these bases," he muttered. "Standard containment. Amplification. But these modifications... they're not standard. They're strange. Impressive, but... wrong?"

  Dawn just opened hers, stared at a page filled with dense, spiraling runes, and closed it immediately. She stared out into the distance, Taz curling up against her side, purring loudly. "Not my field."

  Mark watched them. He took a deep breath.

  "They're Clyde's."

  The silence was instant.

  "What?" Tori whispered

  "When I attacked him," Mark kept his voice steady but low. He held up a hand as Tori opened her mouth to protest. "Stop. I know what I did. I know how horrific it was. I felt it. Probably more than any of you."

  He looked at the fire, watching the flames dance.

  "I got my memories back," he continued. "The ones he damaged. They're a mess, fractured and out of sequence, but Tori is helping me with that." He glanced at the healer, acknowledging her silent work. "But I got more than just my own past. I got pieces of his."

  He gestured to the notebooks in their hands.

  "That's Clyde's research. Maybe his life's work."

  Carl looked up from the page, his eyes wide. "What does that mean? How did you get a book out of a man's head?"

  Mark sighed, the weight of the confession pressing down on him. "Clyde was the wrong person for the job Eric gave him. He was a thief, a scavenger."

  He pointed to the diagram Carl had been studying.

  "I've been writing those books for the last few weeks. Every night. Transcribing what's in my head. That's the magic Clyde either started to develop, or I will guess in most cases, stole from others he... visited."

  He looked at them, gauging their reactions.

  "It's a library of stolen, and experimental magic, some are probably borderline forbidden, I wouldn't know how to check. And now it's in my head.”

  Mark let the silence stretch. The fire crackled, a small sound against the vastness of the mountain.

  "Do you know what they are?" Carl asked finally, his voice hushed. He held the notebook like it was a live grenade.

  Mark shook his head. "I'm just a scribe. I copy what I see. The only one I had a lead on was in a different book. When I was talking to Sam... something he said triggered a connection. A name. A 'Recall' ritual. It’s not active knowledge, it feels like it's leaking…"

  Carl swore softly. He closed the notebook and set it down on the rock, pushing it away from him.

  "We should throw these in the fire," Carl said, his expression grim. "The bits I can make out... Mark, some of these are Jade and Sapphire level rituals. High-tier architecture."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He looked at Mark, his eyes serious.

  "Anyone can perform a ritual," Carl explained. "You don't need a Heart to draw lines on the floor. But higher level ones require control. Precision. The kind that usually comes with decades of magical attunement. You try to create one of these without the right foundation... make one mistake, you could burn yourself out. Or level a city block."

  "Lots of dangers," Mark agreed quietly. "That's why I asked for somewhere private. I didn't want this discussion in the house.”

  Tori busied herself with the food bag, her hands shaking slightly as she pulled out bread and cheese. She was trying to build a sandwich.

  "It's useless burning them," she said, not looking up. "If Mark's already got it in his head, the paper is irrelevant. We should really be talking about responsibility. Possessing stolen information can be a crime in the Collective. Especially if it was taken by force."

  "There isn't any responsibility," Carl countered, his voice hard. "At worst, it's spoils of war. Mark didn't steal them and it's not a thing to hand back over, he survived them and has to live with them."

  He looked at Mark.

  "You need a safe. A proper one. I'll supply it tomorrow. Burning them is useless, I agree. But if these have been stolen from people... from other craftsmen… or masters... that's a nightmare. If someone recognizes a proprietary design in your notebook, they'll come asking questions we can't answer."

  "So what do I do with it?" Mark asked. He looked at the pile of books. "Avoid them? Read them? Learn from them?"

  He picked up a twig and snapped it.

  "I'm worried about the contents," he admitted. "Some of it feels... dark. But the learning factor... Carl, the principles in these books go way beyond the library's guide. It's engineering on a level I can barely grasp."

  "Knowledge is a tool," Carl said. "But tools can cut. Keep them locked up. Study them if you must, but be careful.”

  "Quick example," Carl said, leaning back. "The sand projectors. You see them in the Guildhalls, the libraries. You said Jenny used one to show you First Landing. They create high-quality three dimensional images." He snorted. "Proprietary to the Engineers. They charge a fortune for them, and the maintenance contracts are rumoured to be extortionate."

  Mark felt it then. A flash of green behind his eyes. A sharp, momentary spike of pressure in his skull. He winced, rubbing his temple.

  Tori’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. She had sensed it.

  Mark reached into the bag. He pulled out another notebook, Volume 8. He started rapidly flicking through the pages, his mind starting to burn as each different image gave no answers but vague, ghostly feelings. He flipped it back to page thirteen and handed it to Carl, the pressure on his head vanishing as quickly as it came.

  "It's a water projector," Mark said, the words tumbling out. "Unreleased design. Uses fluid dynamics and refraction instead of sand suspension. Higher fidelity, lower energy cost."

  Carl stared at him. Then he took the book. He traced the circle with a trembling finger.

  "This..." Carl whispered. "This uses the surface tension of micro-droplets as a lens array. It's brilliant. Sapphire level, and the layers of intricacy…"

  Tori raised her hand, a soft diagnostic light flaring. She aimed it at Mark.

  "I'm fine," Mark said, waving her off. "Just... indexing. As I said, it's triggered and deeply unpleasant. It feels like there is something more behind it…"

  Carl looked up, his eyes wide. "If the Engineers knew this existed... Mark, this is worth a kingdom. Or a war."

  Mark shook his head. "If the feelings attached to that design are correct... it's the only version. Stolen from a prototype, modified with pieces from other stolen designs. It's unique. A hybrid. There is a deep regret lingering on it, as it wasn’t possible to form it accurately enough to work."

  "Then I don't see the issue," Dawn said, breaking her silence. She was stroking Taz's head, looking bored by the ethical dilemma. "Just don't copy stuff that exists outright. Don't draw attention." She glanced at the complex, spiraling diagram on Carl's lap. "No offense, Carl, but you couldn't build that without mistakes anyway. So it's safe."

  Carl opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He looked at the diagram again. He looked at the delicate, impossible geometry required for the fluid lens.

  "She's right, it's a sapphire design, it would have to be perfect." he grunted. "I couldn't cut the channels accurately enough. Not by hand..."

  His eyes drifted to the canvas bag he had brought with him. He stared at it for a long moment.

  "However," Carl said slowly. "The primitive may have already solved that problem without knowing it."

  Carl grabbed his canvas bag, unzipped it. He pulled out three brass rods, each about three feet long, tipped with a rough-cut quartz crystal. He set them up in a triangle on the flat rock, extending small, retractable legs to stabilize them.

  He tapped each gem. They pulsed with a dull red light. Carl grunted, nudging one of the rods a fraction of an inch to the left. Then the other. He adjusted them until all three crystals glowed a steady, vibrant green.

  "Pretty," Dawn said dryly. "But it doesn't solve any issues."

  Taz huffed, clearly agreeing with the assessment, and stalked off to investigate a snowdrift.

  Mark watched, fascinated. He refused to ask. He just watched the craftsman work.

  Next, Carl removed a brass cone. It looked like the business end of a rocket, tipped with a tiny, clear crystal. A larger, deep blue gem was set into the top.

  "I reworked it," Carl explained, polishing the brass with his sleeve. "Used a blue ruby for power and control. Found that quartz actually worked better for the focus." He laughed, a short, satisfied sound. "Turns out very cheap for parts. Nothing higher than Garnet tier."

  He tossed the cone into the center of the triangle.

  Mark lurched forward, his hands reaching out to catch the delicate instrument before it shattered on the rock.

  The cone didn't fall. It stopped in mid-air, caught in an invisible web of force between the three rods. It hung there, perfectly suspended, humming softly.

  "Levitation array," Carl said, grinning. "Standard lodestone tech, repurposed for precision."

  "So what's the interface?" Mark asked, leaning on his cane. "How do I tell it what to draw?"

  Carl grimaced. "Working on it. Right now, it's direct. Requires a Heart of the Gemstone to interpret the intent." He glanced at Mark. "Which means, for now, you can't use your fancy toy."

  "I am deeply offended," Mark deadpanned.

  "I need a mirror," Carl announced. "Something flat. Glass or polished metal."

  Dawn raised her hands. "Don't look at me. Hunters don't carry mirrors."

  Tori sighed, digging into her healer's bag. She produced a small, round pocket mirror. "Don't break it," she warned, handing it over. "And if it blows up, I am not healing either of you."

  Carl placed the mirror face-down on the rock, directly beneath the floating cone. He picked up Mark's notebook, flipping to the page with the water projector. He placed his hand on the closest rod of the array. His tattoo flared white, then deepened to a rich red as he channeled.

  The cone hummed. A beam of white light shot from the tip.

  Dawn and Tori jumped back as the cone began to move. It wasn't the slow, mechanical travel of a CNC gantry. It was a blur. The levitation field allowed it to dance, tracing lines faster than the eye could follow. The high-pitched whine of cutting the metal backing filled the air.

  It was over in seconds. The light died. The cone hung still.

  "Done," Carl said, checking the blue ruby. "Power usage... negligible. Maybe two percent. It'll recharge in an hour."

  He picked up the mirror and handed it back to Tori. The back was covered in a frost-like haze of tiny lines.

  "What am I supposed to do with this?" Tori asked, squinting at the etching.

  "If I read the schematic right," Carl said, "it uses mental intent. Until I fix the interface, only people with mental aspects can activate it." He took a water bottle and carefully poured a few drops onto the mirror. "Concentrate."

  Tori held the mirror. Her tattoo, the Heart of Dreams, pulsed with a soft, red light. She frowned, searching and struggling for the connection.

  The water moved.

  It didn't just ripple. It rose. The droplets merged, pulled upward by invisible threads of force. They coalesced into a shape. A tree. It was tiny, shimmering in the morning light. The refraction was slightly off, giving the water a prismatic sheen, but the form was undeniable.

  The group stared in silence. A tree made of water, standing on the pocket mirror.

  Carl beamed, pride radiating from him like heat from a forge.

  "It works, the design… the etching array." he whispered. Then his face fell. "It's a shame. We can never sell this."

  "Why not?" Mark asked, watching the water-tree sway in an invisible breeze.

  "Because," Carl said, gesturing to the notebook. "The moment the Engineers see this, they'll guess, then panic. And then they'll burn us down to get it."

  “That's a management issue…” Mark smiled as the team were mesmerised with the future.