I am tossing and turning. I fear sleep. I don’t want more visions. Instead I check on the dryad. She was developing brown pustules. I cured them, but it hasn’t improved her overall condition. I heal the first few new ones again. My special sense gives her a few days left.
I renew the air again, just to keep myself awake. Why did the coconut fail? Is my power racist against monocots? Let’s experiment. Indeed, I cannot make wheat or barley. Rice also fails. But I can make silk. Silk comes from a plethora of insects, though, and also spiders. Very briefly my mind settles on skunks, but no, no, no, no, not going there. I am not going to test animal products until we get out of here.
Monocots are really important in food production. But that applies mainly to grains. I need to get creative. Yes … let’s do something fancy. A snakeskin fruit works. So does a date. I carefully bite open the date. I have no idea whether I can replace a tooth. There is no seed in it. I make a grape. Same result. I try a carrot. Failure to appear. No potato either. A banana is no problem.
I can make fruit, but not seeds. This is testable. A strawberry without seeds does look like another kind of fruit, but it does work. Now I need to recharge. Eating neutrinos still feels weird.
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Hildegard is watching the wizard. His reactions are alien. Her father does not have a court wizard. His liege lord’s wizard would not have taken a beating from some young woman without family protection. And he could just throw a few fireballs, though he was presumably vital in warding the castle against other wizards.
Yet he also doesn’t act like a servant. Like a priest maybe, though priests are not shy about telling you that they are priests. But the way he hesitates while making the fruit makes her think that he is trying out which fruit he can make. And that does not make sense. As far as she knows if you are born with the spark, some wizard may discover you and take you in as an apprentice to teach you spells. Though that is rare because often the spark runs in a family. Well, if he can’t sleep this may not be the best way to connect to him, as talking would wake everybody, but it is a way and she will need help to come home again. Indeed she may need help to survive, full stop. It’s already October and she doubts that a wizard doing human sacrifices will put his lair into a hospitable area. She needs to show that she’s sorry.
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She almost made me jump. I should have noticed earlier. She moves like someone trained in certain arts. The Indian girl moves more gracefully, but for her it is an art form. This woman moves like the demoness, if they want to. They both know how to fight.
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She is smiling. I smile back. She points at the doorway and tilts her head in question. I will not lie to her. I shrug and go for an uncertain facial expression. She points to the fruit I have arranged on the chest I usually sleep next to. I make an inviting gesture. She is intrigued by the snakeskin fruit, which she starts peeling. I make a few cherries for a reason I don’t fully understand. She is delighted.
She points at my face. I am alarmed and turn the air into a mirror again. She is intrigued and proceeds to watch herself in the mirror, only to become unsatisfied with the state of her hair. I belatedly understand that she wonders why I had no eyebrows.
Though that makes me wonder why whether I can create pictures other than a mirror. I create a small statue of her in chainmail with a spear, floating in the air. Her hand goes up to her mouth to silence herself. She shakes her head.
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Does he think I am a soldier or, much worse, a camp follower? I have to correct this. I try to shape with my hands a castle. After a few minutes he gets the idea. He creates a pentagonal wall with towers on each corner and a gate with a gatehouse. This is fun. But the gatehouse is horrible. I get him to at least recess the gate a bit.
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Apparently I am bad at castle design, but I get that a gate is a weak point. It hits me like a hammer. I activate flight and fly down into the hole the crystal occupied. I grab the wire. Yes, I feel something. I send a disspell through the conductive enchantment on the wire. I get a hostile response from outside the barrier. An evil grin spreads over my face. You will not like this. I start drinking neutrinos and build the biggest disspell I can. This may burn out the wire. I need to make it count. I hear something. It seems I am waking our people up. I don’t care.
I let it rip. The barrier over the doorway fails in a shower of sparks. A strong gust whistles through our cave. My ears hurt and sounds are getting quieter. A baby cries. Two female shrieks cut through the chaos.
I look up to see the dryad with a sharpened wooden stake and my Indian companion on her back clawing for her eyes running towards me.
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Anjali can only deflect the spear. It pierces only his shoulder instead of going right through his heart. The blonde girl withdraws a cudgel from the blanket serving her as a robe and knocks the dryad out with a blow to the temple that would have killed a man.
The demonness comes down covering the distance in one leap. With the dryad going to the ground the spear also vanishes.
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The demon is applying pressure to the wound. I scream. Blood is flowing. Where has the spear gone? I need to fix blood vessels. I wish for them to close right now and unleash my full power. As my vision fades, I don’t know whether it is enough.