comes close.
Once it’s done to his satisfaction, he takes the crystal across the room and sets it on a box sitting against the wall. Returning to his workbench, he activates the spell and removes one of his slugs from his belt. Just throwing it naturally without the added magic behind it, he watches as it arcs through the air toward where the crystal lies.
As it nears, he feels a spike in the tingling sensation and watches as the slug bounces off an invisible shield which springs up around the crystal. Once the slug was deflected, the tingling sensation subsides and the shield disappears.
He walks over to the crystal and slowly reaches his hand out toward it. Moving slowly, his hand is able to reach the crystal and take hold of it. The glow within is greatly diminished, but still perceptible.
It worked. However the tingling sensation still resonates through him and that isn’t good. Any mage in close proximity will recognize that another mage is in the area. This may not work as well as he hopes. He can’t afford to declare to any mage that he’s one, could have unfortunate results should the other mage be unfriendly. He may have to stay with the voice activated one.
In situations where his presence is already known, then this would be a viable protective device. He’ll have to think on it.
From outside, he hears Ezra calling in everyone for lunch. He didn’t realize he had spent that much time on this. Deactivating the shield spell, he sets the crystal down on his workbench. Leaving the workshop, he heads over to the house and is soon sitting down at the table.
Dave is not present. Miko sees him wondering about it and says, “He returned awhile ago and went back to bed. Said he wasn’t feeling good.”
James commences eating, his mind on his friend. What can be wrong with him? It’s not like him, maybe the time as a slave really messed him up. They’re not five minutes into eating before Arkie nails him in the side of the head with a piece of slightly mashed tuber.
“Arkie!” Roland scolds his son.
Not looking the least bit sorry, Arkie grins at him as James wipes off the residue of the impact from his head.
“I’m sorry James,” Roland says as he slaps his son’s hand. The grin from Arkie quickly vanishes as his father reprimands him.
“Seems he has it in for you,” Miko says from his place down the table. Giving James an amused grin, he holds up one of the boiled tubers in salute then commences eating it.
At first it was amusing now it’s getting downright annoying. An idea comes to mind and James excuses himself for a moment and leaves through the back door.
“Think he’s getting a helmet?” Uther jokes.
“Maybe full body armor,” retorts Jorry which causes everyone in the room to chuckle. As soon as the door opens again and James returns to the table, everyone quiets down.
“What did you do?” Miko asks with a smile.
“Just got something from the workshop,” he says. Taking his fork, he commences eating. All the while he keeps an eye on Arkie from the corner of his eye. Sure enough after he’s begun to eat, Arkie starts glancing in his direction. He sees Roland begin to say something to his son but James shakes his head, indicating for him to leave the boy alone.
Everyone in the room is watching the unfolding event to see what’s going to happen. They know Arkie is about to throw, but James appears unconcerned. Ezra is simply beside herself. She wants to stop him but had seen James’ indication to Roland to leave him alone. Hitting the master of the house with a mushy tuber simply is not to be encouraged.
Then all of a sudden, Arkie grabs a tuber from off his plate and with a squeal, launches it at James. Just before the tuber reaches him, he feels a tingling spike as the crystal in his pocket creates a shield around him.
Splat!
The tuber strikes the shield three inches from his head. Everyone looks to James in surprise and he returns their gaze with a satisfied smile. Then all of a sudden, the shield disappears and the tuber, now no longer upheld by the presence of the shield, falls. Striking his shirt, it leaves a trail all the way down to his lap.
He sees Arkie again pick up a tuber and this time he doesn’t interfere in Roland’s attempt to discipline his child.
“What happened?” Miko asks incredulously.
“Just something I was working on,” he replies. “I’ll not go into detail about it.”
“It stopped the tuber,” Illan says.
“And anything else speeding toward me,” replies James.
“Anything?” asks Miko.
“Anything,” confirms James.
Miko suddenly grabs a large tuber and launches it at James.
Surprised by the attack, he leans back in his chair as the shield suddenly springs to life and stops the flying tuber. The tuber disintegrates and plasters the shield with a large area of tuber pieces. Then, just as it had before, when there was no longer something coming at him, the shield disappears. James scoots back quickly but not fast enough to avoid being hit when the mashed tuber is no longer supported by the shield and falls.
“Miko!” cries out Ezra. Enough is enough.
He looks and sees the anger in her eyes. No one acts that way at her table. “Sorry,” he says in his most apologetic tone.
“It’s nice to see I’ll have some help cleaning the dishes after the meal today,” she says, never once taking her eyes off him.
James stands up, tuber coating him from chest to groin. The others on the table break into a laugh. Arkie looks around at everyone, thankful that the attention has been diverted from him, and joins in with a high pitched squeal of delight.
“Guess I’ll have to work on that,” he says. Taking one more piece of meat off his plate, he leaves the kitchen and heads to his room to get a change of clothes. He’s not about to bathe twice the same day, at least not unless it’s warmer outside.
While he changes his clothes, he thinks he may need to make it that once the shield is activated, it will need his vocal authorization to cancel itself. He remembers back to when he and Jiron were coming back from Saragon and that magical attack he fought off by the other warrior priest. There are definitely times when it would be bad for the shield to disappear, such as when a flesh eating goo is covering it. He can still recall what happened to that captain at Mountainside when the shield disappeared and the goo hit him. Wasn’t a pretty sight.
Before he’s done, Miko appears at his door and says, “Sorry.”
James gives him a smile and says, “I’m not mad.”
“I didn’t think you would be, but Ezra told me to come and apologize,” he says with a grin.
“You don’t want to be on her bad side,” James tells him.
“Don’t I know it,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I have a whole afternoon of cleaning and other chores I’m sure.” Then his mischievous grin appears and says, “But it was worth it!”
James laughs, claps him on the shoulder and they both return to the kitchen. On the way, he stops by the door to the room Dave now calls his own. Not much more than a walk-in closet really but at least it’s private.
“Good luck,” Miko says as he continues on to the kitchen.
Opening the door, he finds Dave lying curled up on his bed. His eyes open at the sound of the door opening. When he sees James standing there, he says, “Come on in.”
James enters and closes the door. A very little amount of light enters through the cracks in the wall, giving them enough to see each other. He comes to sit on the edge of the bed as Dave sits up. “You okay?” he asks, concern in his voice.
Dave is silent for a moment and then replies, “I just want to go home.”
“I know,” replies James. “So do I.”
“Do you?” he asks. “Do you really?”
Taken aback by the question, James asks, “How can you even ask that? Of course I do.”
“Why?” he asks. “You were nothing there. Here you are a powerful mage, have a house and many friends. I
