It was common knowledge that excellence and success are rewarded with responsibility and elevation. So, despite their grumbling and conspiracy theories, Kendra Sterling and David Henderson knew they’d been assigned as Center liaisons to the army survey teams due to their achievements. Having recently been on the team to discover the density shift, and then being among the few survivors of the first kobald attack, they rapidly rose through the ranks.

  The only problem was that neither of them were particularly enjoying the new positions they found themselves in. Dealing with a war was not what they signed up for.

  Kendra had joined Center Research to help farmers like her parents. Yes, she enjoyed the scientific aspects of her job, and it was also true that she found the connections and workplace politics stimulating. However, her primary motivation had always been to advance Dorchester’s scientific level to aid the villages and towns outside the wall.

  David on the other hand was only interested in the science. He was born to be in the lab. While he was proficient with magic, and not unskilled with a spear, it was the study of the planes and how they worked that he loved.

  Both of them missed their time in Center Research working under Nicholas Salvatore. When he’d left the Center to found his own house, House Verena, they both seriously considered leaving with him. If, in the future, he ever created a research division for his house, they both secretly promised themselves that they’d join him. Although, David wasn’t so secret about his intentions as Kendra already knew about them.

  Unfortunately, events seemed to be pushing them further and further away from their goals. The war with the kobalds had forced them out of the lab, and any thoughts about their former boss had long since been pushed aside for more immediate concerns.

  Or at least they had been until command got an urgent ping from Lord Verena, stating that he needed to immediately speak with whoever was in charge of the survey teams. As everyone knew their history with the man, Kendra and David were, of course, brought in.

  Walking into the meeting room, neither of them knew what the topic of discussion was about, only that they were ordered to be there.

  Seated at the table were three members of the Tower of Magic, four subcommanders, and two commanders. All of them were speaking quietly but urgently with one another, completely ignoring Kendra and David’s arrival.

  Taking their seats, Kendra whispered to David, “What do you think this is about?”

  David, ever the stoic, replied, “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

  He was proven correct as the moment they sat down, the commander at the head of the table stood up. As he did, he activated the table’s communication array, connecting the conference room’s speaker to an active communication channel.

  “Lord Salvatore-Verena, both the representatives from the Tower of Magic and the survey teams have arrived. You may begin,” he declared firmly while leaning over the table imposingly.

  From the center of the table, Lord Verena’s hurried voice spoke up, “It’s about time!”

  Both Kendra and David shared a surprised look with each other.

  Without bothering to introduce himself or ask for anyone’s name, Lord Verena just started talking. “You all know that we haven’t been able to figure out how to get through the kobald’s illusions. They are a form of spell weaving that we have never seen before. While we’re sure that the technique is known to the kingdom, our level of development hasn’t earned us the right to utilize the Tower of Magic’s database to learn how to counter it. In short, we’ve been trying to figure it out on our own.”

  The commander, clenching his fist in victory asked, “And you’ve discovered how they’re doing it?!? Outstanding, Lord Verena!”

  Lord Verena’s voice, having been interrupted, paused for a second before replying, “What? Who was that?”

  “This is Commander Hagen, currently assigned as the coordinator between the Tower of Magic and our intelligence efforts,” the commander replied quickly.

  Lord Verena replied, “Of course you are. Now please be quiet. I need to speak with the people who are actually capable of understanding what I’m saying. I just told you that we don’t have the ability to pierce the kobald illusions, and furthermore why it’s so difficult for us to do so. I’m attempting to be brief, so a great deal of what I’m saying will need to be inferred. We don’t have time for me to repeat myself.”

  Kendra couldn’t help but chuckle into her hand at her former boss’s obvious disdain for anyone who dared interrupt one of his lectures. David, having known the man for the longest, wasn’t surprised in the least by his cutting response.

  Changing his tone as if he fully expected the commander to sit down and shut up, Lord Verena continued, “Now, since we haven’t been able to pierce the kobald illusions on their encampments and what we can assume are subterranean cities, we assumed that we couldn’t pierce ANY of their illusions. However, what if they AREN’T illusions in the strictest sense that we understand them?”

  Both the three mages from the Tower of Magic and Kendra and David exchanged looks of confusion, obviously none of them having any idea what Lord Verena was talking about.

  “You see… while working to clear out the upper city, my team and I discovered a kobald tunnel that was hidden by using an essence construct with an illusionary overlay. The spell that anchored the effect was not technically an illusion. There was no array, just a powered spell that was actualized by ambient essence flows. While I very much doubt they’re doing the same thing on a grander scale, it’s not inconceivable that they adapted the technique to a powering array anchored to whatever they want hidden,” he said while sounding somewhat impressed with their ingenuity.

  David, suddenly understanding what Lord Verena was getting at, shouted, “If that’s true, then we can interrupt their illusionary effect by simply bypassing it. If we tune our scrying arrays correctly, we can sidestep their so-called “illusion” and see what they’re hiding!”

  Sounding surprised, Lord Verena asked, “David? Is that you?”

  Somewhat ashamed at having spoken up without being asked to, he replied quietly, “Yes, my lord. It’s me, and Kendra is here too. Apologies for interrupting.”

  Lord Verena replied happily, “No need young man! It’s good to hear from you. How is the survey team treating you two?” Before David could reply, Lord Verena shouted, “Wait! Never mind that now. Let’s keep our focus on the problem at hand.”

  Kendra, having been able to follow along, spoke up, “Of course, Lord Verena. First, we need to recalibrate our scrying arrays for a wider spectrum. We’ll have to fine-tune it as we go to determine at what wavelength the kobald’s spells are working at.”

  David, nodding along, added, “Yes, but we’ll have to be thorough. I very much doubt all of their illusions will be set up by the same mage. Who knows how many signatures we’ll have to isolate.”

  One of the mages interjected, “We’ll have to set up a variable assembly to scan across a large bandwidth until we get a hit with an active spell form. From there, we can isolate the interference signature and use the Tower of Magic’s Thought Hub to filter through our collected data for similar instances of essence irregularity. It would work like spellcaster tracking, but on a much larger scale.”

  David, once again too excited to keep his mouth shut, shouted, “Of course! That’s why you wanted the survey teams here. We need to find an active kobald illusion to use as a reference for the Tower of Magic’s scrying teams. Otherwise, we’ll be trying to find one essence signature in a million.”

  The commander, realizing that they may have just cracked the kobald illusion problem, asked firmly, “Are you saying that you CAN break through their illusions?”

  Lord Verena’s voice blared through the room’s speakers, “Hells be damned, man! Let the scientists work!”

  —--

  While Nick was in contact with whoever he needed to talk to, Nero had taken out his trusty wooden stump to sit his ass down.

  The dwarves remained fascinated with the broken stonework around the edges of the kobald tunnel, while everyone else was still roughly in formation, both watching the room’s exit and the tunnel for incoming enemies. Natalie and the mages meanwhile were huddled together talking with the two scouts.

  Pulling out a plate of some type of meat and what looked like blue mashed potatoes from his personal space, Nero decided to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy some food. If there was one thing that he still found amazing, it was the fact that he could store anything he wanted and pull it out whenever he felt like it. He would have killed for this ability back home.

  Just the thought of being able to pull out a cliched bag of popcorn after he’d started an argument between two strangers was enough to send him into the giggles.

  Smirking to himself as he used the silverware he’d stolen from the keep to dig into his meal, he reminded himself that he needed to acquire another stump the next time he was in the wilds to act as a table. Having to sit his meal on his lap like he was at a picnic simply wasn’t cutting it.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  While he ate, he thought about how excited Nick had been about what he’d said and tried to figure out what the man had figured out. It was obviously important, and could probably affect the war as a whole. It also was pretty apparent that it had something to do with the weird kobald spell technique that acted like a mind-altering illusion.

  Thinking back to the only other kobald illusion that he’d seen, Nero tried to remember what the one on the mountains felt like. It definitely wasn’t a spell like the one they’d just found. The one covering the tunnel here was definitely more like a spell, while the one on the mountain was more like that hiding technique Rose and the evaluators… former evaluators used. Was there a connection he was missing?

  Mentally reviewing how he’d gotten around the illusion on the mountain, Nero realized that he hadn’t broken it like he had the one hiding the tunnel. Instead, he’d just mentally gone around it. So, reasonably, it was possible that they shared some similarities that he wasn’t aware of.

  If that were true, then theoretically all spells could be ‘gotten around’.

  Mentally thinking himself into circles, he paused his logical gymnastics and took a sip from his canteen.

  Looking around, he saw the dwarves had finished their examinations and were now in the argumentative phase of their scientific process. Seeing them shouting at each other while trying not to be too loud was pretty funny.

  Seeing that Natalie and the mages were walking over to him, Nero turned his head toward them and waited.

  Before they could say anything, Nero asked the mages, “Hey, either of you two know if it’s possible to use your own center to ignore another person’s spell?”

  One of the mages, either Merrick or Peter, replied immediately, “You mean like a counterspell?”

  Shrugging as he took another bite of his meal, Nero replied, “I don’t know, maybe. What’s a counterspell again?”

  The other mage said, “A counterspell is exactly what it sounds like. When someone fires a spell at you, you fire the opposite spell back at them. When they meet, their effects cancel each other out. It’s a difficult technique that usually doesn’t work perfectly. The goal isn’t to actually counter the spell. Usually, it’s to stop the spell they’re firing at you, causing it to misfire.”

  Looking confused, Nero was thankful that the first mage clarified what the other one just said.

  “Imagine a person sending a bolt of concussive force at you. You fire one right back at them. Both spells are hypothetically just as strong as the other one, and when they meet, they both project an equal force in opposition to one another,” he said.

  Nero nodded, before saying, “I get it. So if the spells are exactly perfect, they cancel each other out. But in the real world, that doesn’t happen. The counterspell is never a perfect counter, so the spells just destabilize each other. In the example you just gave, that would probably end up with the two spells just blowing up when they hit.”

  “Not really. In that example, they would probably just fizzle apart and cause a small release of wind from whatever force is left over,” the first mage said.

  Interrupting them, Natalie said, “As fascinating as this is, we need to talk about our orders. Ms. Averrett has asked us to push through the tunnel and see where it goes. Meanwhile, other teams are backtracking and checking the cleared areas to ensure that we haven’t missed any other hidden tunnels.”

  Nero, nodding in understanding, put his half-eaten meal and silverware back in his personal space along with his stool.

  Clapping his hands together to clear off the non-existent crumbs, he said, “Sounds good. I’m ready when you are.”

  While Natalie got everyone back into formation, the dwarves returned to the rear… still arguing with each other about whatever it was they were arguing about.

  Nick took up his position in the middle of the formation, right next to Nero and the mages. To Nero, it was obvious the man was still focused on the conversation he was having over his link. He was barely paying attention to where he was going. It took one of the mages holding his arm and dragging him to get him heading in the right direction.

  While they slowly made their way up the tunnel, Nero was happy to see that someone had thought of the magical equivalent of flashlights. Almost a third of the people in the formation had cast a simple light spell, either hovering above their hands or in the case of the two mages, over their shoulders.

  Nero, copying what they were doing, cast one of his own.

  It was a pretty simple spell, one he’d already learned from his household spells book. But what was interesting was that almost everyone cast it subtly differently than the person next to them. They all inherently attached themselves to a person’s center, requiring constant power, but allowing them to carry them along unlike most spells. And while they all looked identical, at the spell form level, he could see the discrepancies.

  As far as he knew, spell forms were supposed to be rigidly defined. Mages who studied and created them needed to learn exactly how they were supposed to be carved. Any deviation from the pattern was supposed to cause problems with the spell. But, obviously, that was not an actual rule… because he was looking at half a dozen exceptions.

  Keeping his voice low, Nero nudged the mage next to him, catching his attention. “You’re Peter, right?”

  The mage replied with a small smile, “Merrick. Merrick Gotleb, my lord.”

  “Right… sorry. Anyway, you know your light spell? Well, I was wondering why it’s a little different than everyone else’s. Not that yours is the only one different. Everyone’s is. I was just curious as to why that is. I thought spells were supposed to be cast the same way by everybody,” Nero asked, trying to smoothly move past the fact that he hadn’t known the man’s name.

  Looking confused, Merrick replied, “It is? They are? That doesn’t seem right. I’m casting the standard light spell everyone learns in school like everyone else. When you say different, what do you mean exactly?”

  Nero, not knowing how to explain it, still tried. “It’s like they’re all kinda warped reflections of each other. Or better yet, like everyone was shown the same pattern, but then kinda copied it freehand. They're all pretty close, but not really identical.”

  Merrick paused for a moment to focus on his spell, furrowing his brow in concentration. He then took a moment to look at the mage next to him’s spell… who’s name was, by process of elimination, Peter.

  After a moment, he turned back to Nero and said, “I’m sorry, my lord. But they look the same to me. If they weren’t all the same, they wouldn’t work correctly. Therefore, I believe you may be mistaken.”

  Nero had never been so respectfully told he was crazy before… it was a new experience.

  Not wanting to argue, Nero replied, “Thanks, Merrick. I’m sure it’s just the nerves getting to me. Don’t worry about it.”

  Immediately ignoring the man, Nero kept up the pace with the rest of the formation while staring at his feet in thought.

  Obviously, the locals didn’t have the precision essence sight to see what he was seeing. To them, everything was too fuzzy to recognize that the spell forms were different. So, either nobody ever bothered to use any of their fancy machines to check the same spell from multiple people and compare them, or he was missing something.

  Once again, Nero wondered why he couldn’t have found a universe where the spell abilities and reality were controlled by hotkeys.

  It reminded him of the time in college when he had to take a physics course. Even at the most basic level, it required a ton of math that he never really understood. After having figured out the way all the forces and everything balanced out, and having solved for the resulting direction of the theoretical pool ball, the professor had made it very clear that everything they had just learned only worked in THEORY. In reality, there were too many variables unaccounted for which could affect the pool ball’s ultimate trajectory. All that pointless math, all that brain-melting thought, and what they learned was only ‘kinda’ applicable to real life.

  Nero stayed lost in thought for a while, completely ignoring the winding slope of the tunnel around him. The formation stayed quiet, silently moving through the kobald tunnel, ready for anything.

  When they eventually arrived at the end, they found the forward scouts standing in front of a solid wall of stone, waiting for them.

  Guessing that they would be communicating over the command channel, Nero quickly joined in to hear what they were saying.

  “...like the other one. We checked the other side, and it was an uncleared floor. We’re not sure which one, we didn’t want to head into the hallways and find out,” one of the scouts said.

  Natalie asked, “How do you know it’s an uncleared floor then?”

  The other scout replied, “Because there is still furniture and stuff lying around. Nobody’s cleared it out yet.”

  Nodding, Natalie replied, “Reasonable assumption then. But we need to know what floor we’re on.” Turning to Merrick and Peter, she asked, “Can either of you two determine our location?”

  Surprisingly, it was Nick who answered her, while still looking like he was completely lost in thought. “We’re on floor 4. We must have bypassed floor 3. Luckily, whoever set up the Though Hub relays did a wonderful job. When the engineering teams got the central control chamber up and running, the floor relays seem to have activated.”

  Nero, surprised to see Nick participating while still looking like he was stoned out of his mind, asked over the channel, “Wait… we can still access the Thought Hub? I thought we were on the Battle Hub, or is that the same thing… just… of battle or whatever?”

  Coming out of his daze, Nick took the time to look directly at Nero, making sure that he was able to see him rolling his eyes.

  “Nero, check your pings. I’ve sent you a book that I want you to read before you ask any other questions that make people question their decision to follow you,” Nick said before going slackjawed again, obviously re-engaging with the multiple conversations he was probably having.

  Muttering under his breath, Nero said quietly, “Damn… that was a solid burn. Respect.”

  While Natalie and the rest of the team were determining how they should proceed, Nero did what he was told and checked his pings for the book Nick had sent him.

  Right there at the top, he saw Nick’s ping. Opening it, he found a fully typed-out note. How Nick was able to quickly write it, while likely having multiple conversations with people across the city, Nero had no idea.

  Nero,

  This is the standard introduction to the Thought Hub that all children are given when they get their first link. While most people only bother to read the first few chapters, most of your questions will probably find their answers in the later ones. Knowing you, I doubt you care much about the history of how they came to be, but you should at least try and learn about how they work. Historical social pressures and developmental paths are forces of nature that are inevitably entwined. Why and how the initial Thought Hubs were created are both important factors in understanding what they eventually became.

  Of particular note is Chapter 14. It covers the interactions and types of Thought Hubs, both private and governmental. Also, be sure to read Chapter 7… twice if you have to. That should put to bed any conspiracy theories you might have on what evils the entrenched powerbase uses the link system for.

  Lord Nicholas Salvatore-Verena, Head of House Verena.

  Checking the attachment, Nero saw the title, ‘The Hub Where We Think’.

  Muttering again, Nero scoffed, “Yeah, 'cause that doesn’t sound suspect at all.”