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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ArcAngel98 on 2025-09-05 21:11:41+00:00.

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Farnír’s POV

The Neame that arrived were the special forces from the allied nations, as well as their construction specialists. I heard from other later that the bulk of their forces were left behind and would arrive as quickly as the could. But upon receiving the emergency message from the Queen about the new expected arrival date of the dragon, they all decided that speed was more important than power. As soon as they arrived, their leaders got to work were needed. Chancellor Aye-Aron helped organize his troops to assist in the excavation as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, King Hidra joined his troops in my Railgun classes. Surprisingly, they took to it pretty well. King Hidra himself and his personal guards actually had a decent understanding of magnets already. Apparently, there is a lot of natural magnetite and raw iron in their lands, so they refined it, and are now the largest supplier of iron on the continent. Between his soldiers, Nine’s help, and my own lessons with others, about thirty-five out of the one-hundred and thirty-eight mages had so far learned the necessary steps needed to cast Railgun. Most of those who did not know how yet were new arrivals, or those, like the Captain and Lieutenant, who simply struggled to understand the concept. Some of the new arrivals who did learn, or already knew the individual steps, were from King Hidra’s nation, but the bulk of those who could now learn the spell were from the Drakes. So, I took them and began a new class off to the side. Everyone else kept practicing how to use magnetism.

“Okay everyone. You all have the basic steps down, so I’m just going to give a quick explanation of how the spell works and why, and then you all can start practicing it on the range.” I said, pulling out a few more ball bearings and passing them out to the new Neame. There was one good thing about Neame. Since they were all natural mages, they only needed to perform a spell once to remember how to do it. It may not have been perfect, but according to Suma, they could remember the feeling of their mana moving and replicate it. “First, you need to set a path. The length of the path determines how much power the attack has, so it should be decently long. However, bear in mind that targets move, so you may need to make adjustments along the path before you fire it off.”

One of the new Neame, one from New Lerna, spoke up. “How come we need to know why? Can’t we just- OW!”

“Don’t ask stupid questions… Just shut up and listen.” King Hidra said, smacking the Neame with his wing.

“… Anyway. But if you’re firing at a moving target, I’d recommend shorter paths. But if you do that, you’ll need to add more magnetic pulls and pushes to get it up to speed. Remember, the power of this spell comes from speed above all else. The magnetism only acts as a means to accomplish this.” I held up a ball bearing and cast Railgun once to show the newbies its capabilities. The Drakes had seen me do it a few times, so they knew what to expect. Instead, they, and I, kept an eye on the New Lerna and Apepdon forces. They were startled to say the least. Only King Hidra remained unfazed. The rest squawked and flapped their wings, moving away from the thunderous crack as the ball bearing broke the sound barrier and effectively deleted a chunk of the ground where it hit.

“Impressive.” King Hidra said, clearly excited. He was yelling, but that could have been either the genuine joy he felt at seeing the attack, or hearing damage. “It moved faster than I could see, and left a crater the size of a few borogs.”

“So far, I’ve had all of you apply magnetic fields to ball bearings to make them float. Now I want you to create paths of rapidly switching magnetic fields to push and pull the ball along. When it is moving forward towards a new field, it needs to be pulled, and the instant it passes the mid-line of the field, it needs to switch so that it begins pushing the ball away from it. When I do it, I preset the spell so that it happens with my conscious knowledge.”

“What?” A voice in the crowd said.

“How?” Someone else asked.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Farnír, have you always been able to do that?” Nine asked.

“Yessss. Why?” I asked, hesitantly.

“Well, where’s the magic circle you use?” King Hidra asked, and looked at the ground beneath me.

“Magic circle… this?” I asked, and lifted my sleeve, revealing the mark I’d gotten years ago when I became Suma’s familiar. It was a white symbol that had burned into my arm when she named me. I’d always assumed that Deyja had something to do with it. But I’d seen others like this around, but the one I have was far more complex. It never hurt, but did occasionally glow when I cast complex spells.

“A familiar’s circle. So, we all need to make magic circles before we can use this spell?” Nine asked.

“Fine then, if that’s what it takes. We’ll just have to prepare them before the battle. Lerna warriors, begin forming a magic circle! I want to try this spell!” King Hidra ordered.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

This time, it was Suma who answered. “Setting magical effects to happen, without actively doing them yourself, is only possible using magic circles.”

“But I can.” I said.

“It must have been your familiar’s mark. Otherwise it would be impossible. Even dragons cannot do such things.” She said.

“You know, some legends say that Apep, our land’s Guardian Dragon, even went so far as to engrave a magic circle into his own flesh to ensure he could cast any spell he wished, now matter what.” One of the New Lerna Neame said.

“So did the Dragon King.” Suma said.

I thought back, but couldn’t remember Deyja ever having a magic circle like this, but Apep and Ahshem both had symbols carved onto their bodies. At the time, I’d assumed it was some kind of special mark only for certain dragons.

It didn’t take them long to set up a circle with all of them working together. In pairs of three, which was as many as they could fit into the circle at a time, they tested out the spell. To my surprise, they all managed to do it. It wasn’t as powerful as the one I’d demonstrated, but it was fairly close.

“How…? You all just learned how to make something magnetic.” I whispered to myself. I looked at the circle hastily drawn in the dirt. Multiple Neame stood around it, and filled the lines with rapidly flowing mana. It pulsed and surged like electricity in the lines. The Neame seemed to be in deep concentration around it. And then I felt this sensation in the back of my mind. Like I’d seen this somewhere before. Then it hit me, (It’s a circuit board.) I thought. The one on my arm was way more complex than this one, but still… “How come y’all don’t use these all the time?”

“They are too fragile for combat use. But since this spell has such a long range, we should be fine.” King Hidra said, fluttering out of the circle and letting the next Neame take his place.

“Fragile?”

“They are like far more complex runes. If you break a line on runes, the effects end, and maybe the mana erupts from it at worst. But with a magic circle, you can break multiple lines with little effect, but once enough of the lines have been broken, all the mana inside will be released all at once; every time.” He explained.