“So, how many did we lose?”

Sera flipped through a document that we had stolen from Galen’s office which listed all of the slaves. There were a lot of papers missing, but we’d specifically asked to keep specific ones which we knew we could use, the list being one of them. The sun was only starting to go down, and it appeared as though Nicole had already clearly defined her party.

“We lost 18. So we have 68 people who are willing to follow us. It appears that her speech has unified those who want to leave for Mylia and those who want to support your cause, which is a slight upside. The 10 penal laborers all chose to follow you, if that gives you any consolation.”

Not really.

“North, this is what happens when you can’t make decisions in warfare. You’re going to end up getting screwed over by people who want to exploit you.” said Alex, his arms crossed. “You think she’ll keep her end of the deal?”

I turned to Alex and nodded. “She’s a consistent woman. When she makes deals, I think she doesn’t lie. She’s willing to not include specific details, that’s for sure, but what she says she wants is usually true and what she wants from the person she makes a deal with are rather straightforward…” I had a small moment of self awareness as those words came out of my mouth. “Except for her favors. I think she’s got something planned for me in the future.”

Next time, I’m not going to trust Elina as a judge of character.

“How is Elm doing by the way?” I asked a question which had been bugging me. Elm got burned badly from Galen and seemed to be recovering ok, but I was still going to push for him to stick to riding on the strigs or the carts.

“He’s doing fine. He’s awake, but the burns still hurt for him. I asked him how long it would take and he mentioned that he healed up pretty quick. Definitely going to leave a scar though.” Sera said, turning over to the bunks. She had been keeping track of supplies and people the entire time I was fucking up our future prospects.

That also reminds me I need to figure out what to do with Karla. I’d prefer not to drag a child along with me on my warpath, but I wasn’t going to let Nicole take her. The best case scenario was finding her home in Corith and returning her to her family.

“North?” Sera snapped me out of my thinking session and brought me back to the current moment. There was a lot going on in my head as I tried to figure out the future of nearly 70 people. “You mind telling us how you plan to travel to the camps?”

“Uhhh…”

Sera, Alex, and a few other passersby who had heard some of the conversation turned to look at me. I could hear Alex click his tongue in disappointment and Sera had her open hand in her face.

“Of course you don’t.” Sera was disappointed in me, and I couldn’t blame her. “We have a map from the guard’s supplies which lists out the locations. You’re going to need to work with that if you want to go to Corith as you said and also liberate areas.”

Sera, I feel like you’re forgetting something.

“I’m not good at reading maps.”

There was a collective groan from Sera and Alex.

“Fine. Lucky for you, I know someone who could help us out on our mapping. If she helps us, I’m pretty sure we should be able to work out a route. Her name is Ruby.” Sera’s face was a mix of emotions that I was unable to define but it made me a bit worried.

“That’s good. Should I go and meet her?” I tried to show her some confidence, because hers was clearly wavering. “I definitely need as much help as I can get if we want to make our journey successful.”

“Yeah, sure. Just know that Ruby is a bit… unique.”

Who at this camp isn’t unique?

“Ok. Can you just point me in her direction?” Sera’s wavering tone was not helping me feel better about our current predicament, nor was the fact that I was pretty sure I had heard the name Ruby used along with less savory descriptions..

“She’s currently scouring the captain’s office.”

***

I opened the door to Galen’s office to find items more strewn about than before and the loud sound of rummaging coming from behind the desk. Occasionally, I could see small bits of hair bounce up over top, which told me that I was in the right room. Although faint, I could hear who I presumed to be Ruby mumbling something to herself.

“Uh, hello?”

As soon as I spoke, a woman’s head popped out from over the counter. Her messy brown hair finished off with red tips. Her eyes seemed to dart around my body.

“Paper.”

I took a moment to try and fully take in all of the chaos that was in front of me, and a woman randomly yelling paper at me was certainly not helping.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Paper?”

The frown that was already on her face deepened. “Do you have paper? Any fucking paper? I’ll take scraps, just anything to write on that isn’t my arm or tits?”

“Excuse me, what?”

Why would you write on your breasts?

“No? I’m sorry, but you’re Ruby, right?”

Before she ducked back down under the counter she nodded at me.

“Yup. Best cartographer in Boralis. Well I would be if there was any fucking paper! I swear to god those dumbasses were all high and mighty with this big funeral pyre and made the genius decision to throw in any paper they found that was blank. But nobody had a single fucking thought about the potential usages of paper for, I don’t know, PLANNING OUR ESCAPE?”

I think this might have been what Sera was warning me about.

I walked over to the other side of the counter to see that she had apparently started to scratch stuff onto the floor while also rummaging through every drawer.

“Hey, I’ve got a map that I could use some help with. We’re going south and-”

Her head immediately popped up from the drawing on the floor, her eyes brimming with curiosity and new found energy. That frown had entirely disappeared.

“Map?”

“Yeah. We’re trying to hit a camp on our way to Corith and need a route planned out that can allow us to do it while also potentially hitting towns where we can get supplies.”

She slowly got up, and I realized that her hands were stained with what I presumed to be ink, and there were small drawings on her breasts, arms and legs.

That wasn’t a joke?

“I presume that means you need the help of a master cartographer?” She flicked her hair back, attempting to show off for some unbeknownst reason.

“Yes, and I’d like you to help.”

Her smile widened. “Well then you came to the right girl. Ruby Marietta, at your service.” She gave me a thumbs up, the frustration of paper seeming to have subsided for the moment.

Wait…

I took a moment to study her right hand, only to notice that something was wrong about it. Her pointer and ring finger were completely missing, although the wound looked extremely old. Asking a cartographer why they were missing 2 fingers felt like something I should avoid, so I simply nodded and led her out of the building.

Maybe I should find some paper before she hurts someone…

***

“Kid, you don’t need to be this worried about me. I’m fine. Just a little burnt.”

Elm was sitting up from the bunk, still looking a bit tired. He did look better than the previous night but he was still recovering from his electrocution by Galen. The burns on his body stood out even under his shirt. It reminded me of the desire I had since Elric had died.

“I need to learn healing…”

Elm looked up at me with a frown on his face.

“I ain’t teaching you that shit. For one, it’d probably get you killed, and you’ll probably end up killing whoever you try it on the first time. You’re only still working with the basics of magic. Sure, you’re a fast learner, but you don’t really have a way to understand healing. It doesn’t work like normal magecraft. I’m not teaching you that. You still haven’t learned how to really focus your magic and connect the concepts. You’re basically shooting off big bursts of light and aren’t focusing them in any direction. The way you’re interacting with mana isn’t normal, which is probably why you were able to figure out that invisibility thing, but that doesn’t mean you can just ask it to do whatever you want.” Elm was still frustrated about my adamancy about learning it, but I wasn’t going to stop. Having the ability to heal others would be a great asset in combat and general life.

“Sir, how is my utilization of mana weird? I know you’re supposed to interact with it and have it listen to you, but is ‘asking it’ wrong?”

Elm shook his head, seemingly grateful that I had shifted the subject away from healing. I’d been bothered by this ever since Alex had pointed out that what I was doing was ‘not how it is supposed to work’.

“People don’t talk with mana like that. You tell it to do something and it listens to you. You don’t ask it like it’s a fucking favor, you just tell it. But you’re doing that anyway, and it’s working. My guess early on was that you’re just doing the normal call and response, but your mind interprets it as asking the mana to do something for you, but your invisibility thing conflicts with that theory.”

I stared at him, confused. The invisibility trick I’d figured out was something that had saved me on a few occasions to the point where it felt like a natural part of my toolkit. “What’s weird about it? I mean, if I’m doing the call and response, it works the same right?” I lifted up my left hand and let it phase out of sight. Elm had already gotten used to seeing parts of my body or my entire being phase out of vision. He sighed, clearly disappointed at my attempt to show off.

“That’s the issue. Light’s kinda hard to make parallels with since you’re such a fucking rare attunement, but messing around with ambient forms of mana is something that takes most mages years to understand. If I wanted to collect all of the dust and particles of stone in the air into one solid stone around my hand, it’d require me to issue a multitude of commands on a scale which would fry a normal mage’s brain.”

“Would it fry your brain?”

Elm laughed in response.

“I’m not enough of an idiot to try it, but I could probably do it with enough focus or liquor. But here you are, doing it with only a month of practice. Best theory I’ve got is that light attunement gives you an easier time accessing mana and talking with it, but that messes up several years of my life’s work studying magecraft.”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah, sorry. So, what’d you get me up for?”

Oh right, that’s why I was here.

“Oh, I’m having a meeting about our plan on which places we’re going to with the camp’s resident cartographer. I trust your judgment, and you don’t seem to be doing anything important other than lying around.”

Elm simply looked me in the eye, his cold demeanor having returned. Seeing that he was still the same old grumpy self was an oddly comforting thing. I extended out my hand, and Elm grabbed onto it and lifted himself up. We walked outside of the bunks, the sun starting to descend past the rolling hills in the distance.