The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 109

Part 17

"Wow. That was really great. You grown-ups are really good." Fire marveled as she laid down on the carpet she'd been sitting on and started her favorite stretching routine. "It's one of those wonderful things that you learn and you know, but every time you experience it you learn it again. You're all such great wizards, and that was the best brainstorming Link I've ever been in. I mean, it still seems to me that you do things in really old-fashioned ways, but each of you have at least one really incredible kind of genius."

"Thanks for saying." Talia smiled as Mark massaged her shoulders with his left hand while massaging Alilia's with his right. "And you're right, compared to you four, we are old fashioned, even though we instituted all the newest cutting-edge techniques just a few weeks ago in real time. You kids are absolutely breathtaking in your brilliance and creativity. You use magic in ways that I'd have never considered in a million years."

"I'm not that damn brilliant." Val groused. "I still don't get how Father did what he did with the power fields at the end of his battle with Zarkog. It's making me crazy! He's done really minor versions of it since then, like when I was born, but they're not the same and they don't scale up evenly. We're all Linked with Father, we're all studying his Reading of what he did, including everything he thought and felt at the time, and still, none of us get it! Not even him!"

"That was the only time in my life I ever held all the power I could hold." Mark mused. "I mean, all the power I could hold, of all three kinds; I really pushed myself past any kind of safe limits out of desperation. And that's what made the difference. That's what we're not doing now. It was really shocking how much better and faster I could think when I did that. You can really see that in the Reading, but without doing the same thing, we can't understand what we're seeing. Not even me, and I'm re-living my own thoughts and experiences."

"Well then, let's get as much power as we can hold, and hold it." Val said as she sat up, stating the obvious with some exasperation. "It's still not much past noon at Focus Mountain, and we can get a lot more warlock power by going there than we can get through the power stone. We can get others to pass us as much wizards' and sorcerers' power as we can hold.

"Not only do I want to get this problem solved now, but I want to know how to use collection fields for everything I do, and, I really want to know what it'll feel like and what kind of thinking we'll come up with if we all do this while we're all deeply Linked. It might lead to some big breakthroughs."

"We should ask Equemev and Silaran if they can spare some time to join us in that." Talia suggested. "Unicorns always bring a completely different perspective, and I miss their influence and their thoughts. And I miss their company and friendship too. It's too bad that parenting and young unicorn's instinctive fear of dragons have interrupted our friendship for a while."

Equemev made her psionic awareness known; the unicorn equivalent of politely clearing her throat, to let them know that she'd been aware of the conversation since her name had been mentioned. "We can spare some time today for good friends, in perhaps twenty minutes?"

"That would be fine." Talia replied with a smile. "But you'll need to use some of that time to familiarize yourselves with the project as it stands right now. I doubt you'll be able to keep it in mind all at once, I sure can't, so Povon can give you access to her record of it from her bracelet, and you can store it in something and look it over for parts you'd like to contribute to.

"Right now we're stuck on understanding Mark's breakthrough with the power fields. Since he had it when he was holding his very limit in power, we're all going to try Linking and working on it while we do that.' "I see." Equemev responded. "Then we'll use the Kejaz reflector; it focuses the Source as the Focus Mountain reflector focuses warlock power, and the two reflectors are relatively close, since Kejaz is in west- central Xervia. It'll be easier to participate in the Link over such a distance than to have the power passed to us from another over the same range."

"I will simply ask for some volunteers among the Serminaki Draconians to pass us all the power that Povon, Karz and I can hold." Kragorram decided.

"Talia and I and the kids should go to Laylas Valley first, to get charged up on wizard power." Alilia suggested. "We'll bring the wizard's power stone to get a final top up at Focus Mountain after the Translocation."

"All right, I might as well come with you." Mark said, and turned to the Dragons. "We'll meet you at Focus mountain in about thirty minutes."

"Agreed." Kragorram nodded. "And we are nine. It just seems right."

"Well with Equemev and Silaran, we'll be eleven." Mark pointed out.

"True, but they won't be physically present, so that doesn't matter." Kragorram quietly insisted.

"Father, you are such a traditionalist." Karz chuckled.

"You mean I'm a superstitious old relic?" Kragorram asked with a grin. "I like to think I'm still a bit young for that."

"Hey, you said it, I didn't!" Karz laughed, as Alilia Translocated her family to Laylas Valley.

They arrived high in the air, and as Talia answered the local Sentry's challenge, Alilia Levitated the children a moment until she was sure they had it themselves, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Their training ensured that they always cast Flight, Pure Breath, and full automated Battle Shields whenever they detected themselves being Translocated.

They floated in the dark of night, though it was so clear that they seemed surrounded by a dome of stars and moons from horizon to horizon, with the sky bisected by the bright band of the galaxy.

It was bright enough that they could clearly see blue reflections of the stars glinting off the collection stone that floated about twelve meters away from the center of their group, below them and to the west. "Mmm, this is so nice!" Fire commented as they basked in the power and the view, and the others smiled as they shared her response.

After looking around a moment, Val inquired; "Have you tested the efficiency of that collection stone?"

"How do you mean?" Mark asked.

"I take it you haven't, and I mean conducting some test to determine how much of the wizards' power that the collection stone intercepts from the valley below and around us actually gets delivered from the power stone in usable form."

"Uh, all of it, I think." Mark told her.

"That's physically impossible." she stated. "No transfer or transduction of energy is ever perfect, even the very best spells always lose a tiny bit of energy to heat, and sometimes to light and sound as well." "Okay, I knew that." he nodded. "But I think it's pretty close to all of it."

She Retrieved the power stone from Six's pocket and considered it, then Translocated a thousand kilometers west for a second, then came back.

"Assuming that the collecting stone has no collecting field of its own, and that it only collects the energy that it physically intercepts, my own collecting field is either much larger than the stone, or far more efficient, or both. I gain charge in wizards' power over ten times faster just floating here by myself than I can get from the power stone. But that's just going by feel, I don't have any way to quantify it." She suddenly descended almost ninety meters, then zoomed back up again.

"Would all of you except Father pack in around me as close as you can?" she asked. "Try to completely block my access to the power emitted from the valley with your bodies and your collection fields. There's no use having Father do it since he doesn't collect this kind of power anyway."

With some giggling, they complied with her request. When Talia, Alilia, Fire, and Six were all hugging her and covering as much of her body with theirs as they could, she waited a moment before she said; "Okay." They released her and floated back an arm's length or two.

"All right, when you did that, my power collection decreased, but only slightly. Obviously our collection fields aren't very efficient, and even our bodies only block a small portion of the power, the rest passes right through.00000000

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