The next configuration started out the same, with One’s first Star connecting to a Star from Two, then Three, continuing all the way around. But this time, Two through Seven, instead of jumping to One and back, connected sideways and spiraled around the Pattern, and One was just part of the general Pattern.

Briggs tilted his head to look at it curiously. “Spirals. Rifling?”

I nodded. “Additive range multiplier.” The Pattern rewove, this time all the Light Stars connected first, then all the Lightnings, all the Fires, and so on. As a result, the ending Pattern was very regular and symmetrical, like lines instead of dots forming an over-pattern.

“My impression is density on this one...”

“Multiplicative Spell Penetration. The damage might not be overwhelming, but it’ll burn through defenses like a much more powerful spell,” I told him.

“Mmm.” Briggs watched as I wove up the last pattern: One complete, then connecting to Two, spiral sideways to complete the pattern, then back up to Light-Three to spiral again around and complete the pattern, repeating six times. “One long line, repeating. Duration, or Chaining?”

“Both, depending on the spell, additive. Very good.” I let the Holos fade.

“The base Resonant pattern is the damage multiplier, but comes with hidden dangers,” he murmured. “You went from one spell to basically thirty-six, albeit you can’t reach them all without being an Adept.”

“Everyone’s always so concerned with raising the power up, instead of peeling it backwards.” I just shrugged. “I tried connecting the seven different Startrails of the base Adept spells together, and they just burn out from disjoining since there’s no resonance, literally burning their own path up and fizzling out. If I form the Adept Patterns across Startrails instead of within them, the amount of drain increases so drastically the spell doesn’t have enough power to form, and just fizzles out instead.”

“And then you’re going to promote to Mage and see how many of these techniques work on the Adept spells,” he rumbled.

“There’ll be some Typeless wizards promoting to Adept soon enough who can take care of a lot of the testing of the lower spells at that time. The first set is always the worst, but since we’re tracking the successes and failures, and observational feedback is giving us datapoints, we can narrow the ranges for the successive spells as we go looking for others.

“The annoying part is that the configuration becomes part of the random Elements, and spell configurations which won’t do anything at the Novice level might become eligible for something at the Adept Level.”

-Another 5040 variations multiplier?- Sama /piped up. -Ah, the wonders of science applied to magic...-

“Yeah, and even spells which totally popped at the Novice level don’t react the same once they’re in a Starmap configuration. So, we need hundreds or thousands of wizards working on them to crunch the numbers, improve the datapoints, and guide further research.”

“Which all goes out the window at the Mage level?” Briggs guessed with a grim smile.

I just tossed up my hands. “YES! At the Mage level, spells start getting highly variable, and the Will of the Caster has immense play into what is and is not possible. I doubt Exemplar Surge will get me a single new Constellation, as nobody is going to have lucked into a working configuration it can steal off the Akasha there, and the numbers are too big for brute forcing.”

-So seat-of-the-pants luck, super Stats, and Skill modifiers?- Sama /laughed from the distance.

“Basically, yeah. Our main datapoint is that we know that 100% of the time, if it’s a valid spell at Novice, there’s a valid spell centered on it at Adept, and there should be a valid version at Mage.”

-But there’s nothing that says a completely ineffective spell at the lower Tiers is not suddenly viable at a higher Tier, now that more energy is at play, and it may suddenly even be more or less effective than the ‘baseline’ spell,- Sama /speculated. -Furthermore, if Will is high enough, it could potentially change whether a spell is possible at all...-

“Exactly. Magery has a lot of play in the Stars as your Will goes up and the amount of energy increases, and Mage is the level where Casters start really playing with magic. More Will basically lets a spell slide in one direction or another, and imitate what should be another existing spell effect there. In essence, every ‘custom’ use of a Constellation should have a set spell that does the same thing, only better.”

“Hoooo...” Briggs mused. “So, the best way to do that kind of research is to observe each and every custom use of a spell in that Element, figure the wobbling out going on, and follow it to the proper configuration the spell is actually trying to emulate.”

-We all know how much people love sharing their custom spells!- Sama /laughed at me, and I thbbbbbed back at her.

“You’re forgetting former Div spec,” I said smugly. “There exist spells to capture the layout of other spells, even auto-Write them, especially on the Sorcery paradigm. It’s basically a spell-centered version of Assay.”

“So you’re going to be training up a bunch of professional spell thieves!” Briggs grinned.

“Despised for stealing your spells and revealing them to the world, loved for stealing everyone else’s spells and revealing them to the world,” I said piously, clasping my hands with a serene expression that had him snorting with laughter.

-And once you have the optimal configuration of any custom spell, you can then work on optimizing the linking process,- Sama /pointed out. -So not only will you Cast the Custom spell better than the original Caster, you can tweak it to Cast it better than others who learn the spell!-

“Which is something we can reserve to ourselves or charge a whole lot for, as we wish, and I’m inclined to the former. No reason we can’t reserve an edge for ourselves as an incentive to join us.” There was a limit to generosity, and Good being better to other Good people was just expected.

“Yeah, the Novice spells should be spread, but anything better, please reserve for our own people,” Briggs agreed. “They’ll be wondering how and why ours are better, but we can just create a bunch of rumors swirling around that.”

The people had been working fairly quickly, and the tons of raw metal had been divided up and were moving out to be stored and Burned for various projects. At five pounds a day per project, the tons of metal would be gone quickly.

“Got another special project for you,” Briggs growled to me.

“Oh, I don’t have enough of those. Please, give me another,” I said with great mock cheer.

“Burned precious metal recondenses elsewhere as it soaks up enough Mana to do so. Is it possible to make up a Formation or something in a high-Mana zone that does that?” he asked directly.

“Yes.” He blinked at the instant answer. “You need to set it up on an Earth or Fire Node, you need to invest two thousand goldweight in the Formation, and it precipitates up to two goldweight a day of precious metal... or at least, it did back on Terra-Luna.

“If the Node is a Major Node, you get twice as much. If it’s a Dual Node, you also double the amount. Aaaaand the Node is naturally not available for Infusion if you do.” I lifted an eyebrow. “And, of course, someone had best be Burning stuff, hopefully nearby, so it can recondense there.”

“So, you’re choosing between using a Node or raining precious metal back down. It’s an active use versus a passive use,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m gathering you have no idea how Beasts would react to such a thing.”

“Ninety percent chance that the removal of ambient Mana of the desired type from the atmosphere would generate hostility from any Beasts using the Node as a passive Mana source. Condensing is much less efficient than Infusing, however. If a supplementary Formation was used to condense the remaining Node Mana, that could possibly be ameliorated.

“The problem, of course, is finding that Earth or Fire Node near enough to your Burning operation...”

He gave me a shit-eating smile, and I rolled my eyes. “That mean you found one, or you want me to go looking for one?”

A big finger pointed down. “Big Earth/Water Node underneath us, right along the salt layer underneath the state. Pretty sure there’s multiple Salt Seeds scattered around the state underground.”

My eyes narrowed. “Huh. That is a damn useful Seed against Aquatics...” Desiccation was a powerful anti-Water effect.

Briggs whistled his one note. “That wouldn’t be a coincidence at all, would it? And oddly enough, I couldn’t find any records of any Earth Beasts sitting on the Seeds, either...”

“Leaving it to the Shore Mages to suck them up and do the job.” And leaving us with tantalizing images of the Great Beasts being powerful enough to do terraforming on that scale. Didn’t that help our lofty aspirations?

“Fine, it goes on the project List, and I’ll have Sam drive me around and look for these Salt Seeds.” I hadn’t been Communing on all my Lived-Line Drives, simply because of too much other stuff to do, but obviously that hadn’t been very efficient. Looked like I’d be retracing at least some ground... and probably finding out some uncomfortable truths as I did so.

Well, they paid me the big bucks for a reason? Oh, right, the only person paying me anything was my own damn self. It was a good thing I was making so much damn money...

---------

Fight, mine, artifice, don’t sleep; fight, mine, artifice, don’t sleep, and a few days pass...

The body of the Drake hurtled across the cavern, slamming into the stone there and shaking the whole place loudly. The crashing of its impact and thud to the floor was followed with a slow groan and grumble as it shook its head and rose to its feet, scattering some stone about, and preparing to-

“Don’t you dare roar, or you’ll bring the whole Firelands down on you. I don’t care if you’ve got some almighty Bloodline, one of the big Birds is going to tear open the ground here, dig you out, and eat you up like a lizard.”

The defiant roar about to spill out of its throat choked and died as the scaled Drake swallowed its roar and blinked at me and the boys once. That didn’t stop it from lowering its head and baring its very pointed teeth, Aura spiking as Fire swelled up visibly inside its throat.

“I was going to ask you to demonstrate your Fire, so thank you for volunteering.” I drifted forwards over the lavaflow through the chamber, ignoring the very inhospitable atmosphere as I hovered there. “If it pleases Elder Drake?”

Infuriated and his pride stung, he obligingly Breathed upon me.