The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 111

Part 17

"I'm full." Talia stated as she floated, turning in place to watch her daughter's blazing flight. "Alilia, are you close?"

"No. I've never tried to find my limits that way, so I don't know what they are." Alilia responded with a shrug. "I found them by accident when I was young of course, when I developed fevers that could only be cured by casting the excess power, one way or another. But I haven't let that happen for millennia, and I've never tried to measure it in any way."

"I may as well pass you my excess then." Talia told her as she started passing power to her trio-mate with a Push spell.

"This may take a very long time, even with what you're giving me." Alilia frowned. "And I'm running out of patience."

She cast a Speaking to Smogin; Regent of The People of Life, and had him arrange for a few hundred volunteers from her people to pass her some of their spare power. He had them ready in a moment, and she cast a Pull spell to draw the energy.

"Ahh, that's nice. I'll be ready in a minute." she reported.

"We're almost ready." Talia announced to the children. "When we are, gather here and I'll cast the Translocation with power I've got stored in items. That way we'll be fully charged when we get there, and we'll be sure that we can get enough power from the wizard's power stone to run our Levitations and Pure Breath and what-not, and keep us topped up. I'd rather we didn't have to take power from others for this; I think that might be a dangerous complication."

The children sent the psionic equivalent of a nod, and Fire hurried to complete her survey.

Soon Alilia wiped her brow and stated; "All right, that's it."

The children rejoined them in a blink, and Talia Translocated the six of them with a quick farewell to the local Sentries.

They emerged over the immense blue glass bowl of the Focus Mountain reflector. It was a windy day, but the only clouds visible were hovering above distant volcanoes.

Povon, Kragorram, and Karz had already arrived, and were hovering beside the research facility on the north rim of the crater, where Povon and Kragorram were conversing through a huge open window with some of the researchers who were gathered there.

They could all hear the occasional distant thumps, roars, and various other sounds of huge destructive spells being tested on the weapons range in the valley beyond the north rim, but Alilia quickly became irritated by it and blocked the noise from coming past the rim.

Mark cast the spell that allowed him to see the reflected warlock's power directly, and his children copied him a moment later, then they all followed him as he flew toward a location about six meters above the focus.

The reflected power looked like two blue cones of light that met at their points, one pointing up and the other pointing down. The upper, down-pointing cone was blocked by Mark's warlock-power collecting stone, which floated two meters above the focus, until Mark Moved the stone a few meters to the side. Then the upper cone shone up into the sky until it faded into invisibility about a kilometer above them. The cones were a bit asymmetrical, since it was almost two hours after noon here. The focus itself; where the two points met, was so bright that it was difficult to look at directly.

"You don't want to be right in the actual focus." Mark explained as he flew. "It's way too intense there. But if you stay at the right distance from it, you should really enjoy this."

They entered the upper cone of blue light, and it was like stepping into a perfectly warm shower after being chilled by a cold day, only even more pleasurable. Mark found he was a bit too low, and rose thirty centimeters to decrease the intensity.

"Ahh, this is really nice!" Val cooed as she closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation.

Six slowly dropped down two meters or so until the intensity of the power was uncomfortable, then rose back up thirty centimeters. Val and Fire imitated his motions, with Fire coming to rest with her head about fifteen centimeters higher than his, and Val about thirty centimeters higher than that.

"Apparently, the less warlock power you can use, the greater the intensity of it you can comfortably absorb." Six commented. "Our relative heights above the focus are close to corresponding to how much warlock power we were able to cast on Hiliani."

"If we all reach capacity at close to the same time, then our lesser warlock casting ability may only be due to a less efficient collecting field for warlock power." Fire speculated. "By absorbing power at a greater intensity for the same amount of time, or at the same intensity for a greater time, we may all be able to cast warlock power with the same strength as Father.”

"We'll test it after the Linking experiment." Mark smiled with his eyes closed, reveling in the pleasure of the power. Talia and Alilia floated beside him just outside the cone, Linked with him and smiling as they shared the pleasure.

Val cast a Link among the nine of them, and Talia extended it to Equemev and Silaran, while Alilia extended it to Somonik, Grakonexikaldoron, Yazadril and Nemia, who were among those observing from the research facility, having interrupted their planned activities to do so.

"You're right, Fire." Val announced. "Insofar as we appear to be approaching capacity at very close to the same rate, at these distances from the focus. We'll be done soon."

"I'm already noticing my thinking improving." Mark announced.

"Me too, and I noticed it with the wizard power as well." Fire agreed.

Their three dragon friends flew over from the north rim.

"We're holding our limit in power, and being constantly replenished from Somonik's Link to cover our output on flying and whatnot." Povon announced.

"You five should have Father show you how to hold warlock power." Six suggested to Talia, Alilia, Povon, Kragorram, and Karz. "Once we're full, we'll start passing you our excess, and start charging up on what we don't naturally have; Source power for us three, and Source and Wizard's power for Father."

"Povon, Kragorram, and I already learned how to hold and cast Mark's power during our training with Quewanak." Talia told him. "So did Equemev and Silaran. Only Alilia and Karz need to learn that." Mark cast a quick teaching Link with Alilia and Karz and gave them the techniques, and they both grasped it right away. Then he and his children began passing warlock power to the rest.

"Once we're all fully charged, and before we really start working on the problems, we should form a circle above the geometric center of the bowl." Kragorram suggested. "And we should intersperse ourselves as evenly as possible. I know it's only Draconian tradition, but it would feel right to me."

The rest agreed without a word. When all the active participants were holding as much power of all three kinds as they could comfortably hold, they moved to their positions with the center of their heads in a perfect circle about thirty meters wide at the height of the focus, all of them well clear of the cones of power from the reflector. Povon chose the north position, and clockwise from her were Talia, Fire, Kragorram, Alilia, Six, Karz, Mark, and Val. A few hundred kilometers east of southeast from them, Equemev and Silaran were trotting in the air in a tight circle in the more-diffuse focus of the Kejaz reflector. "Somonik, please make sure that the air above us remains clear." Fire requested as they finalized their positions. "I'll be releasing power a few hundred meters up. The sun's pretty bright at this altitude and location, and the wizard's rock around here is pretty good quality too. I'm still absorbing a lot of power, even with being outside the cones, so I'll need to vent it to avoid overloading. If anyone else needs to vent some, you might as well do the same."

"Understood." Somonik acknowledged.

High above them, a magic Fire began burning, and was joined by another of a different color, then another, then four more. Six used his excess power for Movement as he set the flames and the air around them to swirling and turning, while Val used some of hers to contain it all and direct it upward when the heat radiating from it became apparent to them, hundreds of meters below.

There was a moment thick with anticipation from both the participants and the observers, then Mark deepened their Link and called up his Reading of the end of his fight with Zarkog.☐☐☐☐

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