“Do you have so much gold or need a loan? Because...”

“I have it. Can you give me extra paper and a pencil and...”

“And?”

“Could I say a spell here in your room?" - at his enquiring eyes, I added -"There is a perfect ley lines symmetry here that would help greatly for my spell." - I sighed - "You know I have a bit of a small mana reservoir.”

He watched me mesmerized:

“You sensed that? That's exactly the reason why I built my house in this spot decades ago when the land was cheap. Well, I could even let you tell your spell in my basement. Don't look at me like that; I do have a special room where I tell my important spells; the resonance is even better there!”

I raised a brow as he said that. I followed him into his basement through a couple of heavily fortified doors. I was a little uneasy about following him, but Flo repeatedly assured me that it was OK.

“You said the same with that bloody vampire, and it ended badly.”

“It is different this time!”

Yeah, sure.

We made the transaction; I paid the twenty gold and got that funny donut with a button and a hole. It could be worn as a ring or as a pendant, but it needed skin contact to charge itself with mana.

“Do you have a sharp tool with which I could make an inscription on it?”

He watched me, horrified:

“I am a spellcraft-jeweler! It is my pride as a jeweler I can make fast and perfect the inscription. What should I write and where? I'll do it for the same price!”

“Oh, ok, much better, but then let me write on paper what you should put on it.”

As soon as I wrote it, he took the note and looked at it.

“May I ask what it means? Just being curious, you don't have to answer.”

“It means: 'Alice to wear. Push here to open' in one of the adventurer's languages. Put it please on the button.”

Why did I choose Alice? Tina's magic was the most compatible with the ring, but Alice had more magic, and even if the ring charging will be less efficient with Alice carrying it, it would go faster. I did not argue with Flo on magic and magic compatibility matters.

The dwarf nodded:

“Oh, I got it. The letters are familiar. That's not a button, that's an emerald, and it is really small. The writing will be itsy bitsy tiny. Is this OK? I guess nobody will see it? Or?”

“It is OK; he will see it.” The Lynx.

He raised a brow and nodded. As he wanted to leave to make the inscription, Flo added fast:

“Can I meanwhile prepare the room for my spell? Can I use this pain?”

“Sure... but that is no pain but a silver solution!? It is half a gold the bottle. If you use much, I'll have to charge it to you.”

“Sure. Oh! Let me write a short note before, to put inside!”

I wrote the note hastily:

"Dears,

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I am not sure when I'll be able to communicate with you again. When you see the portal opening, please get inside and wait there; it will be my signal to start the spell to retrieve you all.

Love, Cala"

I thought if to write Cala and Flo or Cala and Flo and Dolores, but they know it is me, all of us, don't they?

Once the letter was finished, we went out again, and Flo dropped the letter inside the ring.

We returned to the basement, and Flo started to paint some hieroglyphs and signs on the floor. He stayed for a moment to watch me.

“What's that?”

She answered without raising her head, continuing her work.

“Mana boosters spells. It should increase the mana intake from the environment to help me with the spell.”

"Oh?"

He raised a brow and then left. When he came back, I was almost finished with the painting. He gave me the ring.

“Is this OK? The writing came out really small...”

Flo just glanced at it.

“It is perfect!”

"And you wanted to write all this with a sharp tool?"

Flo answered with a grin:

"No, I only wanted to put an arrow to it, but it is much better like this!"

“Oh, OK. May I stay here during your spell?”

“Sure, but please stay at the side, away from the painting, and do not interfere. If you stay in this room, you need to know that the spell might absorb some of your mana in the process. If you move inside the painted area, that may be really bad."

"Bad, how bad?"

"Think of big mana fluctuations with you as a source. Burnings would be minor effects. It might even kill you if you get inside exactly at the moment when I cast it.”

“Me? A high-level caster?”

“Yes”

He watched the inscriptions with wary eyes.

“These are very high-level inscriptions that I do not understand... or only gibberish?”

Flo grinned:

"Only gibberish!"

"That was not nice of you."

She shrugged and took a knife. He was now in a corner, near the door, watching the happening interested.

She took a deep breath and then plunged the knife into my belly with a swift movement. His eyes bulged; he gasped but did not move.

The surprise pain made me scream in my mind:

“Whaaa! What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

She laughed softly, a pained laugh as a line of blood started flowing over my belly, dripping on the floor.

“Have you not yet understood?”

"What? I thought you could direct what the spell takes; this is barbaric!"

She shrugged, a pained shrug, placing the spacial ring into the cut and pushing it inside my belly with two fingers. She navigated it to exactly that point where I had that excruciating pain last time when she used the lightfire spell. She fitted it carefully with her fingers until she was satisfied with the position.

She spelled at first a small healing spell, and I heard the dwarf gasping.

Blood continued to drip, but then she slowly retired her fingers, spelling small healing spells that sealed the ring inside at the desired position and stopped the bloodletting.

She drew a long relieved breath, took the staff in her hand, and started to concentrate, waiting for my mana to replenish. But it was not only waiting; slowly, the inscriptions on the floor started to lighten up like neon lights, one after the other, as mana flows increased. She then started to spell the lightfire spell, and I understood what she wanted to do.

“You are crazy! Do you want to send them my belly with the ring? What if it explodes?”

If the ring is cut, will it not explode? This is a spacial construct; if you break it? Oh shit!

She did not answer, concentrating on the spell. A pulse of light shook me, and it felt as if a beast had bitten my belly. Devoured alive!

I fell to the ground, the inscriptions evaporating instantly with the spell burning the ground around. I heard him gasping. The pain of my maimed belly was insupportable, but Flo had some methods to attenuate it that allowed me to still think clearly.

“What did you do? Did you sacrifice yourself?”

“No...” - I could barely speak. I crumbled in the fetal position hugging my knees, trying to stop the tears running on my face.

I was happy. The spell had succeeded.

“I did it! It worked! I'll heal myself... I just need a little mana...”

I lost my conscience.