The Speedwell emptied out of students, residence supervisors and instructors. As the population decreased the remaining occupants started eating at tables close together. One night Alex O’Rose found herself sitting at the end of the table shared by Grandmother herself.

  “I’m going to go back to Woodheart in the morning,” Ben told Irene, “unless you need me for something else?”

  “You're the Dean, Benjamin,” Irene told her brother. “You're the one who gets to tell me when I can go.” Ben rolled his eyes at his sister.

  “I’m going to check on my bakery, to make sure my daughter hasn’t run it into the ground in my absence. In a couple weeks I’d like a ride up to Greenbend. I want to talk to Matt about teaching pottery in the fall,” Ben announced.

  “That sounds good,” Irene replied. “We are going to make a run to Chicago and take Lizzy back to her granddaughter. That will take about ten days. I’m not sure if Asher will want to go back or not. He is busy studying chemistry with Unkell. Although Unkell might want to go and check on the orphans. I’ll make sure someone takes a cart out to Woodheart when we get back.” Alex didn’t even realize Asher was still at the academy. Lizzy was sitting not far from Alex at her end of the table. She hadn’t seen the other instructor for days.

  “Speaking of orphans,” Ben responded. “Have you found a home for Alex for the summer?”

  “Alex?” Grandmother said with a trace of confusion, she glanced at the warrior sitting a couple seats down the table. Ben gestured to young Alex O’Rose sitting quietly at the far end. “Oh, Alex.” Grandmother responded. “Alex isn’t an orphan. He is too old to be sent off to a family for the summer. He’ll be staying with us. Valin is going to start training him for intelligence work.”

  Which was how Alex found out she wasn’t going to be sent back to the halls of Chicago. She was so relieved she missed some of the conversation after that. She snapped back to the present when Grandmother addressed her directly.

  “I want to talk to you after the meal, O’Rose. Don’t wander off,” Grandmother directed.

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Alex responded.

  “What are we going to do about a stone sculpting instructor now that Fa-Ray-Me has gone home?” Ellen asked. “Should we try to convince the stone sculptor in Seagrass?” The selkie stone sculptor finally left after about thirty days. He apologized for leaving before the end of the term saying there were people that depended on him. He needed to get back to Whitewater.

  “No. It may cost me a fortune but I’m still set on Fa-Ray-Me. Todd and I will travel down to Whitewater and pick him up a month before we start the recruiting tour. We need to get as many upgrades on the stone sculpting workshop as we can by then. We also need to stock up on stone. I suspect we will get offered more and cheaper upgrades if stone crafting actually occurs in the annex.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Ellen said, “I learned a few things from Fa-Ray-Me I can practice. I haven’t mastered all the stone crafting spells we got from the sofa in the south gallery either.”

  “It may be time to teach my apprentice how to cut gemstones,” Valin said. Ellen was Valin’s jewelry apprentice. “It is also possible your successful challenge of the staircase opened the higher level option in the training room,” he offered. “Perhaps you need to challenge a crafting statue.”

  The team finally ‘beat’ the staircase statue by demonstrating thirty six different spells in the late fall, before the start of the term. After the last spell tones sounded the bronze wires, dark iron ribbon and blocks of stone, glass and porcelain all melted into the floor, leaving the room empty. They were left wondering if they won anything or if the learned spells were the reward.

  “No, the statue gave us the learned spell list in our interfaces,” Sarah commented.

  “The what?” Ellen demanded from her sister.

  “Didn’t I add it to the User Manual?” Sarah questioned. “I found it when I was making the interface drawings for Valin’s class. Oh, you know I meant to ask someone in the guild but not part of our group when we beat the statue to see if they had it too. I left it out of Valin’s drawings. I must not have gotten back to it.”

  “Does it show all spells or just the ones we used?” Grandmother asked. She couldn’t chide Sarah about not getting her discovery into the manual. She drove the team hard this winter. Winter was usually more of a rest from the explorations of the summer, while they did maintenance on the Speedwell. This year it was busier than the summer months.

  “It shows all the spells we used with the ones I can’t personally cast faded,” Sarah said. “Plus it shows any other spells that I know that have those spells as prerequisites. It shows a few fragments of spells I can’t cast in the same trees that I think are from inscriptions I personally decoded, but no others. Spells I know about from using the Speedwell’s computer to do the decryption or that we bought, but I never learned aren’t shown.”

  “So no crafting or imbuing spells?” Ellen asked.

  “No,” Sarah said. “It doesn’t reveal any new magic, but it does provide spell ribbons and the symbols used in decoded inscriptions that represent the learned spell, even if I didn’t decrypt an inscription. I thought we should update all our spell books to use the same symbols. It would help people better interpret a decrypted inscription.”

  “We found six grand staircases around tier one space when we did our survey,” Todd commented. “We must need to beat one of those to get more spells added. It will be interesting to see if the statues all have different spell sets, or if there are repeats.”

  “Add it to the User Manual tonight,” Grandmother instructed Sarah. “We can put challenging the other statues on the to-do list for this next summer.”

  “Will do,” Sarah responded. “If you want Kai to teach glass crafting next term, you might want to bring him in to craft here as well,” she continued. “And we,” Sarah said to her sister, “need to find someone else to mind the shop next winter.” Ellen nodded her head in agreement.

  “I’m going to target the potter in Seagrass. I remember when I bought that set of dishes the sales clerk told me she was ‘one’ of their potters. That sounds like someone who can be spared. What was her name?”

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  “Ti-Ray-Do,” Alex responded.

  “Yes, she’s the one,” Grandmother said with a nod.

  “You just like her dishes,” Todd commented.

  “I love her dishes!” Grandmother exclaimed. “Even Valin called them almost civilized.”

  “They are acceptable,” Valin stated.

  “We’ll need to bring clay as well as stone. Since neither one compacts, we should bring back a bag per person on every trip,” Alex observed. “We should have brought back bags when we delivered the selkie students.”

  “True,” Grandmother admitted. “We need to get some of the low cost red clay too.”

  “And sand,” Alex said. “Remember the potter was willing to sell Kai sand. That must mean they use it.”

  “You’ve convinced me. We need to get Ti-Ray-Do signed on sooner rather than later. That way she can just tell us what she needs,” Grandmother declared. The meal was winding down. Alex O’Rose had run out of food on her plate a while ago, but she hung on waiting for her talk with Grandmother.

  “We’ll go out to Londontown the day after tomorrow,” Grandmother announced. “I promised Tessa and Jeremy they could relocate to Home Square or OpenSky if they went back to Londontown for at least two weeks. Harry’s latest caravan should reach there tomorrow or the next day so we’ll send them in the right direction before moving on to Chicago. We can use the time there to gather what we need to work on Valin’s rest.”

  “I am going to head to Home Square tomorrow,” Warrior Alex announced. “I want to pick up some things at my shop before we start the rest upgrade. I’ll meet you at the shop in Londontown the next day.”

  “Do you still have those crafting tool bags we used in Chicago?” Ellen asked.

  “That’s part of what I want to pick up,” Alex responded.

  “I’ll go with you. I want to buy tier one tools for Valin’s rest and I need those bags,” Ellen said.

  “I’ll go too,” Sarah said. “I need to pick up a few books. We used some of our originals for Todd’s rest because we ran out of blanks.”

  “We can all go,” Grandmother offered. “I was planning on fetching Joe and Muriel and telling Harry not to send anyone through anyway. It will give Lizzy and Asher a chance to visit Home Square. We’ll leave after lunch. That will give everyone time to finish things up here too.” Everyone agreed to this plan and the group started breaking up. Grandmother rose to her feet and carried her dishes back to the dish return. Alex O’Rose picked up her own dishes and followed.

  “Walk with me,” Grandmother told the young Alex. Together they walked over to the lift. Grandmother selected a deck.

  “You’ve done very well learning to read,” Grandmother told Alex. “I’m impressed at how far you have advanced. You did well in your other classes too, but I can see your motivation in the reading lessons.”

  “Thank you, Grandmother,” Alex replied nervously.

  “Next year I want you to take events since the landing. Much of current day politics has its roots in the past. The situation here in the structure is unique. Fifty years ago everyone that stepped out of the Speedwell possessed nearly identical childhoods and educations. The drift in the viewpoints of the different settlements is the result of events in those fifty years. This is a history we can still capture and document. Knowing what caused those differences is the first step in figuring out how we can all still live and work together. The alternative is war. That is an option I don’t want to see again.” The lift stopped and Grandmother stepped off.

  “There are a lot of other species living on this planet. Figuring out their different viewpoints and learning how to live with them will be much harder,” Grandmother led the way down a very short corridor to a double wide door. Grandmother opened the door with a code. That was an indication that this was a high security room. Most doors in the Speedwell opened for the people on the cleared list without any additional key.

  “This is the flight bridge,” Grandmother explained. She stepped over to a console. A huge multicolored ball appeared floating in the center of the room. “Our world,” Grandmother said. “We are here,” she said, pointing to a spot on one of the green and brown splotches. It was on the top half of the sphere. Alex moved around the sphere so she could see where Grandmother pointed better. The old woman did something at the console and an area where she pointed started to glow red.

  “This is human territory,” Grandmother told her. “It includes the eastern villages and the entire valley. Another area started glowing blue. It was four times the size of the red spot. It stretched south along the edge of the continent and reached out into the blue of the ocean. “This is my best guess for the selkie federation. I suspect there may be other selkie enclaves, but I’ve been unable to pin down where they might be.” Almost the entire surface of another landmass highlighted in yellow. The landmass was on the bottom side of the sphere and to the right.

  “That is the elven kingdom, according to Valin. He is an outcast and hasn’t been there for a very long time, so this information is dated,” Grandmother observed. The patch of red was really small in comparison. “Valin has told me some rather distasteful things about his people. I don’t think he approves, but at the same time he’s been marked by them. He strives for better, but like all of us, sometimes he fails. He’s smart and cunning. He may have told me those things because he knows I won’t approve and he wants me to act against them.”

  Grandmother fell silent, looking at the colored globe.

  “I don’t understand,” Alex O’Rose said finally.

  “Valin is my intelligence officer. He gathers information for me about what is happening in the world. I use that information to make choices. He also spreads information I want people to know. He appointed himself to that position. He thinks you have potential as an agent.” Alex felt a thrill run through her. Now Valin’s talk about friends telling her things she could not buy was starting to make sense.

  “I’ve dragged you along to this point but you aren’t a child. To do this job effectively you need to be honest about what you know and what you just suspect. I can’t trust what you report if I force you into it. You have a choice. We’ll go to Home Square tomorrow. If you're not interested you can stay there, or go back to Chicago if you prefer. I’ll secure you a place. If you want the job, you’ll travel with Valin this summer. Either way I’ll sponsor you at the academy next year.”

  “I want the job,” Alex O’Rose said. “Please, I…” Alex found she couldn’t put her desire into words. She wanted so much to be part of something. More than that, she wanted to be like Todd, a force on his own, but made only more deadly by his loyalty to Grandmother. That bond was something that would not break and it went both ways.

  “The job is yours,” Grandmother said, “if you want it. Think about it. Go with Valin this summer. Next spring, after the term I’ll talk to you again. It’s a hard job. I want you to be sure.”

  “Will we go there?” Alex said, pointing at that yellow southern continent.

  “Not this summer, no,” Grandmother said. “Someday, yes. Valin has shared a couple things I can’t walk away from. When we do go, I’ll need your clear eye. Valin’s past will color his view, even when he doesn’t think it does.

  “For now we will concentrate on our own people,” Grandmother instructed. “I don’t want to rule them. I want to be able to influence them when required. I need ways to spread information among the population so they can understand my concerns. I need to know what each leader currently believes and what arguments will hold weight with them.”

  “I can do it,” Alex stated boldly.

  “I know you can,” Grandmother replied. “Learn everything you can from Valin. His lessons might save your life one day. Now, go pack for a salvaging run of two weeks,” Grandmother instructed.

  Alex O’Rose rushed off to get ready, proud that she earned her place in the Wizard's Tower. She would strive to be worthy of it.

  I hope you enjoyed the Wizard's Tower. The next Volume is A Wrench in her Hand.

  I want to thank Chameshi, Zilvarsux88 and Jazihra for their input on what the statue challenge in the Grand Staircases between tier one and tier two should give as a prize. The award I finally settled on was a combination of their different suggestions.

  Zilvarsux88 suggested it be an improved “key” for reading the language lower tier spells are written in, Jazihra mentioned the “the interface hides what you don’t know” discussion over on Reddit, and Chameshi long ago said, “It would be funny if the structure UI has a quest log this whole time, just that nobody's found it yet.”

  I put all those together and we got the spell log revealed in the interface as the reward for beating the statue challenge.

  When Grandmother first showed the Grand Staircase statue to Todd, Ellen, Alex and Sarah she told them she’d seen statues that portrayed wizard, warrior and crafter spells. She also had seen staircases with no art at all. Those no art staircases were targeting a skill set she didn’t qualify for at the time. They could be chemistry, enchanting or something they haven’t discovered yet. All of them are opportunities to reveal more of the record keeping functions in the interface.

  And Chameshi, the quest log is in there too, they just need to find the right statue. I’m thinking that is one between tier two and tier three space.