Mark looked at Quark, sitting in the cupholder of his chair. The little guy looked like he was doing nothing, but he was pulling hard on Mark’s astral body, so he was doing a lot, somewhere. Just not here.

  He was back to spying on people, which was fine, Mark supposed.

  Mark refocused on his Union, his heart beating black veins into the air, connecting him to all of the people working on the upper half of the archway, and to the greenhouse hanging below this little warm space, below the spider-crane’s cabin. The cabin was a little wobbly, hanging down from the archway, but the cabin was warm, and they had hot chocolate, even though all the world outside was white with driving snow.

  Mark wondered when Aurora was going to clear the sky…

  Mark asked, “Someone is going to clear the weather, right?”

  Isoko was focused on her chess game with Sally, but she said, “Someone will, for sure. We can’t have a gate activation in the snow…” She paused. “Unless they want it to fail?”

  Eliot came back for a moment, saying, “They better fucking not want it to fail. Stopping Aurora from achieving success is one thing, but the gate itself? No. They want this to succeed.” And then Eliot went back into the machinery overhead. He mumbled, “Someone will clear the weather.”

  Mark asked Quark, “Who is gonna change the weather to something better, Quark? And when?”

  Quark came back. “General Aurora Valen, or perhaps Madam Reeni Thumb, and when Grey Whale gets far enough away that they aren’t caught in the kaiju birth. Madam Reeni Thumb is 90% the one who will do that particular weather alteration, though, while General Aurora Valen waits to rip the resulting kaiju apart. Unless something happens, that is the plan I am seeing on the ground.”

  “A very useful spy,” Isoko said, nodding sagely.

  Sally snorted.

  Mark was surprised by some of Quark’s proclamation. Not by the Aurora-part, or by the fact that he was spying everywhere, but by the fact that the leader of Agriculture Resource Management was capable of changing the weather. He asked, “Reeni Thumb can change the… ohhhh.” Mark remembered about Reeni being a part of some Addavein chimera research, at least. So yeah. She could do some weather magic. Probably. “She makes some amount of sense, I guess?”

  Quark nodded in his cup holder.

  “What is she?” Sally asked, also intrigued. “Her Skill, I mean? I thought she was just a weird Farmer.”

  “She’s not a Farmer,” Isoko said, absolutely sure of that fact.

  “I’m afraid I cannot speculate on Madam Reeni Thumb’s Skillset, Miss Wuthers,” Quark said. “There are too many things she could be.”

  “I think she’s a witch,” Isoko said. “She’s always flickering around, but she’s not a Farmer or anything like that. The only thing that matches her power is ‘Witch’.”

  Sally’s eyebrows went up. “Ohhhh… Yeah. I can see that.”

  “I can see that too,” Mark said. “We knew there were some witches here…” Mark looked at Eliot, imagining that he knew exactly what Reeni was, but he would probably be under an obligation not to speak on that. Eliot was busy working right now, anyway, and a lot of the higher nobles had weird powersets that went unremarked, because they were nobles. Nobles hid themselves because of politics, or whatever. Probably pulling one over on each other, all the time. That’s what nobles got up to, right— And then Mark had a thought. Mark said, “I think Elaria Valen is a witch, too.”

  “Oh absolutely,” Isoko said.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Sally hummed, unsure about a lot.

  And then Isoko asked Quark, “Quark? What is Reeni doing to change the weather?”

  Quark said, “I cannot know for certain, but it appears Madam Thumb is stringing effects throughout the farms to enact some wide scale magic, though whatever she is making still looks mostly incomplete. It involves tiny dolls made of reeds and leaves, placed in the trees here and there, in a circling pattern. It appears almost like a whirlpool design, though it is incomplete. The outer circle is broken into four parts but the inner swirl is fully created. I estimate that whatever is going to be done with the weather will only happen when the gate is built and people are safely ensconced behind bunker walls. When she places the final four dolls on the final four trees, completing the outside circle, that is when it will happen.

  “At that time, the leaders of the settlement believe that 1 to 2 winter kaiju will precipitate out of the sky, while a third winter kaiju is probably not going to happen. They are prepared for such an event, though such an event will likely result in the evacuation of the settlement, unless the types of kaiju spawned are easy types.

  “If my further estimations are correct, General Valen wants to return the weather to 5 or 6 band. 6 is preferred…” Quark paused, then said, “And I have just been informed that we’re at 2 hours till weather ritual activation. Everyone is commanded to— Well. Here it comes through the coms.”

  Eliot shook his head, coming back to the moment, right before he turned up the dial on a speaker to the side.

  Aurora’s voice came over the air, “Attention soldiers. The Grey Whale is putting on great speed and will be a hundred kilometers away, in clear air, in about 1 hour. In 1 hour and 48 minutes, at exactly 17:00 hours, we will enact a ritual to adjust the weather back down to agreeable. You have 1 hour to finish what you can and secure your stations. Everyone should be receiving their final set of instructions for the next 5 days, with the actual full gate activation test taking place in 4 days. If you have not received your instructions, please check your email. If you cannot find your instructions, please request instructions. Please be in place half an hour before we begin the ritual, that means you need to be where you need to be at 16:00 hours.”

  The transmission ended.

  Mark went to check his email, but Quark was already there, floating in front of him and displaying Mark’s personal instructions. Mark read them over and thought them agreeable, and a little exciting.

  They were having Mark do the weather ritual!

  “Lucky!” Isoko said, huffing.

  “What do you think it even requires?” Mark asked.

  “I guess we’re headed to the Farms, then?” Sally asked, almost reluctantly.

  “Oh it’s just wide scale weather alteration magic!” Isoko said, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “What could possibly go wrong!”

  Sally narrowed her eyes, and Mark grinned.

  Eliot focused on the area above the crane, on the archway, only a few meters beyond the skylights. The sky was full of snow, though, so all Mark could see was a shadow up there, blocking the light from the blue winter auroras that flowed across the heavens. Eliot said, “I’m moving us around some and getting some final work done. Hold on.”

  Ice crackled and the cabin swayed as Eliot took control and started moving the ship up on the arch, over to the right side.

  Isoko said, “So I’m excited to see a grand magic.”

  Mark grinned wide. “Me, too!”

  Sally grumbled, “I’m not sure if witches are a whole lot better than demons.”

  Isoko laughed.

  Mark said, “Oh my gods, Sally. Yes, witches are better than demons.” He chuckled. “The fuck?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, gods. I meant it like… witches freak me out! The Imperial Family is all witches and they’re terrifying.”

  “Oh yeah they are,” Eliot said, coming back to the conversation. “Very terrifying.”

  Mark said, “Second Princess Walaria still freaks you out?”

  “Of course she does,” Eliot said. “Only a fool wouldn’t be scared of her.”

  Isoko said, “Witch magic is all social positioning, though. Softer power. Not hard power. As long as you’re not in their sights…”

  Eliot and Mark both gave Isoko a Look.

  Isoko paused. “Ah. You are in their sights.”

  Sally said, “See! You see my concern now! I know you do.”