Chp.19: Sleepless night

Haku was sitting in the sand chewing on some pieces of the sand worm. He had to admit, Darbi was right: it really tasted like chicken and was very good indeed. Also, for some reason he almost seemed to feel more comfortable eating that than eating any other creature he'd ever encountered. It was a strange feeling, but he felt familiar with that kind of food. Or maybe it was just letting his mind wander because he'd finally added something new to his diet, which he hadn't done in a few weeks for… well, obvious reasons. While they weren't picky eaters, dragons liked to try new foods after all, and he was no exception.

Beside him were Zamor and Isaac, who were also looking at the hole, chewing on some of the worm's flesh, even though it, unlike what the dragon was eating, had been fried. They seemed to particularly like it, so much so that the lizardman had even created skewers with it. Zamor had Isaac brought there for added safety, so that if something tried to get out of the hole and there wasn't time to undo the rune magic he could lift a mass of sand from a nearby dune and use it to plug the ride. Which of course meant a sleepless night, and in fact the poor mage was still yawning. "They've been down there for two hours and still nothing has come out" he murmured at some point. "Seriously, can't I just grab a sleeping bag and get some sleep? If something dangerous were to come you'd surely hear it and wake me up!"

"We still prefer to play it safe. Stay awake" Zamor replied.

"Oh, come on! You can't force me not to sleep all night!" Isaac protested.

In response, the lizardman rolled his eyes. "Remind me, who is providing you with food, water, protection, shelter, tools for your research and so on?"

Haku grinned. The mage turned purple. "This is blackmail! And don't laugh! I'm so tired because I spent days studying your damn communication device!"

"If you'd already built a smaller version, maybe you'd have less trouble staying awake. We could have spent the night seeing firsthand what our fearless heroes were discovering instead of waiting for their return" Haku replied still grinning. "And by the way, it's not blackmail. Blackmail involves the blackmailer making you do something. Zamor didn't do that, he just hinted that he's the one who basically supplies you with everything, and therefore it would be in your best interest not to piss him off when he asks you something simple like staying up for just one night guarding a hole in the sand"

"Call it what you want, even 'mandolin' if you like, but it's still blackmail!" Isaac snapped. That answer only made the dragon laugh more.

Even Zamor laughed a little, then he became serious again: "Anyway, since you brought up the topic... that communication device was a brilliant discovery. How long do you think it will take you to make it usable also for the beastmen?"

Isaac made a quick calculation. "Probably a few weeks, provided you provide me with all the necessary tools. I will need extremely small objects to be able to connect all the pieces..."

"Why don't you just use magic to reduce the size of the ones we already have?" Haku asked. "I mean, something like the dimensional bags. From what I know, it should be simple magic"

In fact, now that he thought about it, he wondered why Isaac himself hadn't realized that possibility sooner. In response, the mage glared at him. "If I did, I'd render the device useless. Changing the size doesn't change the mass of an object. The parts of the device would become too compact to function" he said. "You don't know how dimensional bags work, do you?"

Haku let out a snort. In fact, he hadn't asked that question for a long time, even after Maldor had mastered magic and taught him many things. Perhaps he had become so accustomed to the existence of dimensional bags that he no longer considered them unnatural. "No. Enlighten me"

"Magic doesn't work by chance. The world has precise rules that must be respected. And changing the size of an object, although it is a rather simple spell and in fact known by practically all mages, doesn't allow you to change its mass at the same time. Imagine that I take a one kilo block of marble: if I wanted to reduce it by half, the mass would still remain one kilo, and therefore the material of which the marble is made would compact, becoming extremely hard. Likewise if I enlarged it to twice its size, the mass wouldn't change and therefore the material would become much more brittle as microscopic holes would be created everywhere. The only way to avoid this process is to add or subtract mass by converting mana to matter or matter to mana, but it is a very complicated and tiring process" Isaac explained. "What the dimensional bags do is just reduce the size, not the mass, a hundred times and then use a lightening spell to make it as if it had virtually no weight. But since the mass isn't altered, anything placed inside the dimensional bags it is crushed as if it were compressed from all directions. When you then extract it, the magic of the dimensional bag causes all the components to fall back into place, making the object identical to before as if it were not nothing happened, but in reality it could safely be said that anything inserted into the dimensional bag is destroyed and then recreated once it is extracted. For this reason, no living beings can be inserted inside: if you tried to enter it, your entire body it would be squeezed down to one-hundredth of your current size, and then every organ of yours would stop functioning, or even implode from too much pressure. You would die instantly. Once someone would take you out your body would return exactly the same as before... but they couldn't give you your life back. For this you can insert everything, objects, materials, food, even corpses inside the dimensional bag, but not living beings. And if I would try to use similar magic on the devices I've created to make them big enough for the beastmen… well, I'd just break them. As they are built, these devices need these size to work. If I reduced them without changing their mass, all their components would be crushed to the point that they would no longer function unless I returned them to their original dimensions"

Haku listened to that explanation with great interest. He had never considered those options. So mass even under magic never changed... unless, as Isaac had said, he changed matter into mana to eliminate it. But in any case if he had taken the final result and added it with all the mana he had created, he would have obtained the initial weight of the item. Haku's mind felt like he just discovered something important; perhaps, any substance in the world was not created or destroyed, but only modified? Possible? Was the amount of mass in the entire world limited and was everything they knew just a byproduct of something greater? But there were counter-proofs to that theory, such as fire: if a piece of wood burned, then the mass would inevitably change... or... it's possible that, if Haku managed to collect the ashes and the vapors generated and put them together, would that also get the original weight of the log? He had to think about it through. He felt that he might be on the verge of discovering a new unknown feature of the world in which he lived.

Zamor had also listened to everything with interest. He wasn't a mage, but like Haku he took an interest in magic when he had the chance. After all, since he was the acting leader of thousands of beastmen refugees, he never knew what might come in handy in the future. "Thanks for the explanation, Isaac" he complimented. "You really know magic. May I ask what kind of mage you are? You never told us"

It was true. Haku knew that the adventurers accompanying Rhaegal were wizards, that those who used runes were runecrafters, and that those who created potions were potion makers, but he had never asked Isaac what his actual profession was. "Right. What do you specialize in?"

Isaac scratched his head in embarrassment. "Well... to tell you the truth, I'm not really specialized in any field. I've decided to become, well, just a mage. I've studied all kinds of magic, with no exception" he answered. "Among mages, people like me aren't looked upon very well, since this gives you more information about other branches, but it prevents you from delving into even just one of them. And if you haven't specialized in at least one branch, then you have no chance of finding work, since whatever you would go to do would require skills that are beyond your reach.The only job you could do would be teaching younger students who therefore do not yet need specialized training, which in fact is what I chose to do until… well, until the events of fate brought me to you"

Haku was quite surprised. "Aren't you really a mage specialized in something to the point where you can work outside the academic field? You seem to me quite an expert in magic..."

"That's because you know little of it and your requests are pretty easy to accommodate. But trust me when I tell you that in any occupation my skills would be considered mediocre. Sure, I have a high level of strength, but otherwise… nothing" Isaac replied. "If you've noticed, most of my input on this journey has been assisting Maldor or in some cases Darbi using spells I knew or ones your sister had discovered and was teaching me. And that communication device, too, I only created it because you brought me the right pieces and gave me the basic idea. If you asked me to create you a new spell out of whole cloth, it would take me months to make. A skilled wizard, potion maker, enchanter and so on would take a couple of weeks at the most"

Zamor patted him on the shoulder. "Well, your services are still very useful for us" he said. "Why did you choose this path instead of the one commonly used by other mages?"

Isaac shrugged and smiled. "Because I like magic and I wanted to learn it in all its forms. And after all these years, I still don't regret this choice" he answered. "And then I didn't mind teaching... sure, it's difficult and often exhausting, but believe me when I tell you it's a joy to see the new generation of mages grow"

Haku was about to say something, but suddenly the communication device attached to his ear turned on and Rhaegal's voice emerged from it: "Haku? Haku, can you hear me?"

Haku activated image sharing and in front of him appeared his brother in his human avatar, who seemed to be having a lot of trouble holding the communication device in the right way, just like Isaac when they tested it. "I hear you, brother. What's going on?"

"Oh, finally this thing works! I was starting to think it can't be connected underground!" Rhaegal exclaimed, then turned serious again: "Haku, we need your help. Carlos has been injured and is currently fighting between life and death. He is doing well for now, but we don't know how much time he has left and we don't we can move him to his current condition"

Haku let out a worried snort. He knew that his brother and his companions had brought many healing potions with them, so the fact that she called him meant that conventional methods weren't working. "What exactly happened?"

"He was bitten by a strange snake. I won't waste time telling you how, just know that this snake did… something to him, and now a tumor is growing all over Carlos's body" Rhaegal replied. "We've already cut out the most affected part, and this seems to have slowed its progress, but still it's growing faster than any normal tumor. And by now it's spread to different parts of the body"

Haku's eyes widened: "A snake? Which causes tumors?"

"Yes, brother, and nothing we had with us worked. We don't know what to make up anymore" Rhaegal said. "That's why I called you. You are our last hope. If anyone can discover how to fight a tumor out of the blue, it's you"