Nero Walker, Book 2 Ch.57 (89) (Patreon)

Arch-mage Jennings was in his private room at the top of the mage tower, using his link to read a paper on planar magic. He always enjoyed the multi-layered spell-forms. The author was a brilliant mage from out East, and Jennings thought that some of the ideas in the paper were brilliant.

As Jennings looked over the data the man had collected from a planar disturbance he had found, the door to his room pinged. Lazily opening his eyes, he didn’t bother to remove his feet from his desk. With a casual wave of his hand, the door opened and he shouted, “What? I thought I told you idiots that you were to report to Mage-adept Newbanks from now on.”

“They know. Thank you for that by the way. In the future, if you’d like me to take over your projects, I’d appreciate the associated files for those projects,” said Mage-adept Newbanks, as she strolled into the room with her typical calm expression plastered on her face.

Snorting, Jennings replied, “I’m sure you did fine. But if it makes you feel better…” He opened his link and quickly collected and collated all of the current court mage files he had, then said, “There. You have everything concerning the current happenings in Dorchester. However, a word of caution.”

Jennings dropped his legs from the table, sat up and gave the new court mage a serious stare. “Do not interfere with any plots against House Walker. I want that young man to deal with those issues himself.”

Newbanks’ eyes lost focus as she mentally went through the files Jennings had sent her. After a few seconds of reading, she raised her eyebrows in surprise then focused on Jennings.

She said, “You know that this is in direct violation of the new noble accords. Are we really not going to do anything?”

Shrugging, Jennings poured himself a drink then leaned back in his comfy chair. He said, “Eh, it doesn’t matter. The plan will fail. After which, we can decide what to do about it. Let the nobles play their stupid games. I have it all under control. And besides, we have more important things to worry about. By the way, did you get that coffee they have at the keep?”

Offering Jennings a blank stare, she replied, “Yes. You now have a personal stash of the same coffee they use at the keep. It has been charged to your personal account, and hidden behind the wards you requested. Also, I’m waiting to receive confirmation that your bid has been accepted by the artisans for the work on your yacht. They seem hesitant to paint over the royal colors.”

Chuckling, Jennings said, “It’s my yacht. I stole it fair and square. Just give them the paperwork that Mathers sent over. If I want a bright green yacht, then I should have a bright green yacht. Also see if there is a painter willing to put blue flames on it. That would look great.”

Without showing any emotion on her face, Newbanks said, “Very well. I’ll look into it. Thank you for your time sir.” She abruptly spun and walked out of the room, slamming the door with her psychic field.

Jennings just watched the woman leave, then shrugged at her display of anger. ‘That woman is wound tighter than a dimensional knot. I’m gonna have to work on getting her to lighten up,’ he thought while returning to the interesting paper he had been reading.

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All of his gear was spread out across his room. There was so much, it took up both his desk and his bed. In fact, he had to prop the spears up in the corner when he had run out of room. Nero looked around and shook his head in dismay. He couldn’t believe how much crap they wanted him to lug around. Even if he had a personal dimension, he had more important things to store in it than half of this junk.

Mentally checking his personal space, Nero looked over what he had picked up over the past few days. There were 8 pots of coffee, a bunch of dirty dishes, several plates stacked with cookies and bread, and his satchel along with all his books. But, there was still a lot of space that wasn’t being used. It was like a really large room that had everything just floating in it. There was no time, gravity, or atmosphere. The dimension was so bare-bones, that it really was just a spatial pocket.

Nero had payed close attention to the book Jennings had given him. In it were many different types of personal dimensions, and Nero had chosen the most basic one to start with. Even that was arguably more complicated than he should have been able to cast. He didn’t fully understand the spell-form, and if it hadn’t been for them goading him into casting it, he wouldn’t have tried.

The more complicated dimensions described in the book could even allow for containing living beings. Nero wondered if one day he would be able to have the coveted ‘inner world’ that the cultivation novels always talked about. Although he couldn’t imagine how complicated the spell-form would be to cast one. The entire concept was crazy to him.

It had taken only one spell, and he had created a separate dimension that didn’t require any upkeep. And since it was tied to his soul, it would endure until he, and only he, canceled it. The only limits it had were the initial design constraints, and how powerful his soul was. If he had cast it wrong, he could have damaged his center. Or if he had tried to make it too big, he wouldn’t have been able to tether it to his soul, and it would have collapsed. Nero shivered at the thought of what could have happened if he hadn’t succeeded. Even if the chances of failure were small, he shouldn’t have let the old bastards goad him into creating it.

Shaking off his internal musings, he returned to the task at hand. Looking around the room, he thought about how he wanted to do this. Rather than pack everything up into the large duffel bags, he figured it was a better idea to store everything separately. He didn’t seem to have a problem visualizing his personal dimension like some people did, so he figured it was better to be able to just grab what he needed individually.

Starting with his weapons, he stored 4 short swords, 10 spears that were taller than him, 3 small buckler shields, 1 large shield that was too big for him, and an assortment of knives. Smiling at his personal arsenal, Nero looked around the room and realized he hadn’t really made a dent in all the stuff he had pulled from the large bags.

Since he had to individually imbue his center into everything, he realized this was going to take forever. With a huff of annoyance, he stopped stalling and just did it.

3- enchanted lamps: designed to pull in ambient essence and create a directed light.

5- large bundles of ropes: various thicknesses, from twine to climbing rope.

2- sleeping bags: enchanted to be sturdy and could be hung from trees.

1- tent, which could be activated to expand into a small dome.

1- small pillow, which looked like a large soft brick.

10- blankets: thick wool-like material, colored dark green.

2- pickaxes: enchanted with an aid to piercing damage and sturdiness.

2- wood axes: long handles, enchanted to aid cutting down trees.

2- hand axes: short handles, enchanted to aid in stripping trees and for combat.

1- firestarter: round foot long stick that can produce a spark from ambient essence.

5- illusion rocks: enchanted to cast a misdirection ward, so enemies won’t know where to find them. Meant to be placed in a pentagram.

10- full clothing sets, dark green… even the underwear.

1- set of cold weather clothes, in case of planar displacement, however unlikely.

2- spare sets of boots.

30- pairs of socks, which Nero thought was over-kill, but stored them anyway.

1- poncho type rain gear.

1- barrel: enchanted to use ambient essence to collect water.

50- rations, which looked like small brick sized energy bars.

2- cups.

5- canteens.

2- large sporks, which Nero was happy to see existing in this world.

4- large duffel bags, now empty.

2- pairs of goggles: enchanted to increase viewing distance, and handle low light areas.

2- masks, green.

2- breathing filters, which looked like a hospital mask had a baby with a welding helmet.

Pausing, Nero felt drained. It was annoying to create a connection to so much random stuff. He looked through what was left, and decided that he didn’t need any of it. There were things like sewing kits, fish hooks, and tiny empty bags with drawstrings. Nero snorted at the assorted first aid tools; if he ended up needing them he would already be dead. His magic would serve most of his needs. It was bad enough that he took a firestarter.

Enough was enough, he thought. Taking everything that was left, he shoved it into the corner of his room. He already had all the important stuff. If he ended up needing something else, then he’d just have to suck it up and deal with it. There were more important things he could be doing, and he’d already wasted hours dealing with this. In fact, he really needed to talk to Nick before he went to bed.

Opening a connection, he pinged Nick. When the connection established, he heard Nick ask, “Hey Nero, is everything all right?”

Nero took a seat at his desk, and said, “Yeah, I’m all good. I wanted to ask you about essence crystals. You made it seem like there was more to it than just condensing essence.”

Nick’s connection transmitted his amusement, and he said, “You’ll see when you try it. It’s not terribly difficult, but it isn’t as easy as you think it is. Also, did you figure out how you are going to carry the crystals?”

Nero asked, “What do you mean? Can’t I just store them in my personal space?”

Nick sighed and said, “No Nero. Think about what an essence crystal is. Do you see the problem?”

Nero thought about it for full minute in silence. Eventually he said, “I’ve got nothing. What am I missing?”

Nick said, “Essence crystals are condensed potential, or essence. If you try to imbue them with your center, what do you think will happen?”

Nero replied, “Um… nothing?”

Nick said, “Yes, nothing. So if you can’t imbue them with your center, how do you expect to transfer them into your personal dimension which is saturated with your identity?”

Nero asked, “Wait a second. If you can’t store things with an identity, then how do you store enchanted items?”

Nick replied, “It’s totally different. You can coat something with your identity and store it. But an essence crystal doesn’t really have a shape. It is not really physically there at all. It is a condensed form of an ethereal concept. Most space magic won’t work with them. Why do you think there are so many caravans moving between cities? It’s mostly for moving essence crystals around. Other things are easily stored in dimensional spaces, personal dimensions, and even dimensional crates.”

Nero asked, “So how do people normally carry them?”

Nick replied, “Around here? They put them in a bag that grows the more things are put into them. It’s like a stretchy backpack. I’m sure the military has tons of them. But in the bigger cities, they use an expanded bag. It’s not a separate dimension, so there is no issue. Think of it as a really large bag, but on the outside it looks small. They aren’t easy to make, and they cost a fortune.”

Nero thought about what Nick was saying, and it kind of made sense. He could see why essence crystals were a pain in the ass to move around. Thinking of the satchel that Jennings had given him, Nero picked it up from the ground next to his desk. Looking inside it, he just saw a large empty black space, as he had already transferred all the books into his personal dimension.

“Hey Nick, I think I’ve got one of those expanded bag things,” he said curiously.

Nick said, “Nero, you don’t. I doubt anyone in Dorchester has one. There is no point in having them around here. The cost would be around a hundred valens.”

Nero heard what Nick was saying, and he realized Nick was talking about dukely valens. That would be like 100 million common valens. That was insane.

Nero asked, “Why the hell are they that expensive?”

Nick replied easily, “Because they are hard to make, and they require essence crystals to create the added space. It takes a powerful enchanter to harness that potential into an expanded space. Not to mention that the cost of living in larger cities is much higher. You may be rich, but you’re still rich in the middle of nowhere.”

Nero grimaced at Nick casually calling him ‘ghetto rich’. “Bite me. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the bag Jennings gave me is one the bags your talking about.”

Immediately the connection slammed shut. Nero reeled from the unexpected mental disconnect. Shaking his head to clear it, he frowned in annoyance. Second later, the door to his room shook like someone was trying to open it.

Standing up, Nero waved a hand to open the door. Rushing in, Nick said, “Show me the bag!”

Nero shrugged and tossed the bag to the man. Nick examined the plain looking satchel. It was good quality leather, and seemed well made. He opened it and looked inside. Nick’s eyebrows shot up and he looked like he had just found a sex tape of his favorite celebrity.

Stepping forward, he shook the bag at Nero and said, “Do you have any idea what this is?”

Nero offered a blank look and said, “It’s an expanded bag which can store a shitload of essence crystals.”

Nick ignored Nero’s tone and said, “It’s an actual expanded bag! I haven’t seen one of these in years. Do you know what this means?!?”

Nero didn’t say anything, he just stared at Nick like the man was freaking out over nothing.

Nick said, “Why do you have this?”

Nero said, “Because I’m mysterious. It was a gift from a fan. Now give it back and get out. I’m going to sleep now.”

Nick seemed to struggle internally, then tossed Nero the bag and stormed out of the room. The entire time he was muttering about how much of a ‘little shit’ Nero was, and how much of an ‘ungrateful idiot’ he was. Culminating in him shouting over his shoulder, “Just you wait! I’m going to get my own bag, and it will be twice as big as yours. And it will be red leather with gold buckles. You’ll be the one feeling jealous!” Nick slammed the door as he left.

Nero smiled at the man’s rant. Envy was always an adorable trait in friends.

Opening his link, Nero sent a ping message to Arch-mage Jennings.

Hey old man,

I just found out that the bag you gave me was like crazy expensive and super useful for collecting essence crystals. If you really thought that far ahead, then I’m impressed. But I’m guessing this is just a happy accident. Either way, consider this an official ‘thank you’. I’m sure I owe you a favor or two at this point. So if there is anything you need, let me know. If it isn’t something super annoying, or I don’t want to do it, or if it’s too expensive, then I’m perfectly happy to help you out with whatever you need.

-Nero

Happy with his message, and feeling proud that he remembered to send a ‘thank you’ card, Nero tossed the bag onto his desk. Stretching, he decided to call it a night. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, and he wanted to have a good night’s rest.