"-vis!"

...

"Alvis!"

...

"Al, come one, wake up!" The hurried whispers of Sam finally rouse me enough to try opening my eyes but it feels like they're filled with sand.

"Sam? What's up?" I slowly start sitting up, the darkness of the night still pervading the rocks we'd taken shelter on. "How'd you get away?" I ask before focusing on her.

She didn't. There are four arrows in her, with one in her forearm that looks like a vine crawled out of it and up her arm.

"I convinced them that I was not easy prey," she answers in half-whisper half-monotone.

"I can fix the three normal arrows, but I have no idea what to do about the vine arrow," I offer.

"Cut off the arm," she resolutely replies. "At the shoulder. It's in the blood now."

I nervously glance over at the princess and her lady-in-waiting. Both asleep. Weren't they supposed to set up a watch? I inspect the arm with the vine arrow a little closer and, sure enough, Sam has a bit of cloth tied absurdly tight to her lower bicep - a makeshift tourniquet to stop the flow of blood.

"You know I'm going a pass back out after healing all these, right?" I start breaking the other arrows in half.

"I know," is all she responds.

Whelp. If I'm going to pass out anyway, I can at least make sure I get rid of the worst of the damage all at once instead of passing out before I even get to cutting off the arm.

I shove the arrow halves through before I take back out the dagger and activate molecular divider. I wonder how good prosthetics are in this world. Any amount of a nub made for far better arms in my previous world. Instead of cutting it off at the shoulder, I cut it off a few inches above the tourniquet and immediately start healing all of the wounds at once.

Halfway through healing, the edges of my vision start turning black. Damnitall, do I need an anatomy book to study or-"

----------------------------------------

"-we walk."

"Walk!? Do you have any idea how far that is! And you expect us to walk like a group of peasants!?"

Eugh, hangovers suck. I'm gonna call this a mana hangover. How did this turn into an escort quest anyway?

"Just leave them here, Sam," my raspy voice croaks. I'm not even opening my eyes or attempting to get up.

"How dare y-"

"Should I also leave you here, young master?" Sam intones somewhat louder to cut off Liz.

"Sure," I croak. "The less I have to heal others the better chance I can make it there on my own."

"My father will hear about this!" Liz squeaks.

"Sure thing, princess," I say finally sitting up and holding my head, "Make sure to tell him Rebecca sends her regards...y'know...if you can survive that long."

"Alvis," Sam says with ice in her voice, "stop being childish. Liz, we are all walking. Together. This is not a discussion."

"You-" Princess Liz is interrupted again, this time by her lady-in-waiting whispering something in her ear.

Seriously, how do I not know her name? We were in the same carriage together for weeks! I search through my memories while I watch Liz's reaction to the whispering where she then looks wide-eyed at her lady-in-waiting, then Sam, then me. No one has said her name! Liz never says it and she never introduced herself! Well...it would be awkward now to ask now...

"Yes ma'am," Liz replies meekly.

Ooo! A chance! I narrow my eyes at the lady-in-waiting, "Who are you and what have you done with that spoiled princess?"

She just giggles behind her hand while the princess scowls at both of us, one after the other. Damn.

"We should get moving," Sam says.

"Can we wait till this headache passes?" I ask.

"No."

I stand up groaning loudly, the world spinning just a slight bit. "Can we at least get me some more suitable clothes somewhere soon?"

"No. We can get you new clothes, but those have worked remarkably well or I doubt I would be alive today, even if not whole."

Damn. Stuck as a girl and gotta walk for several more weeks yet. These clothes suck - so bulky and cumbersome. I totally understand the gradual shift to wearing only leggings now.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"And in regards to our new travel companions?" I ask, giving them both a healthy amount of side eye.

"You may tell them."

"They would have found out anyway if we're all walking together," I say as I turn towards them, "My name is not Rebecca, and for your own safety I'm not telling you my real one. I'm not a woman so if you need to do something that involves the removal of clothing...ah...maybe don't? I'm disguised because there are various groups after me, though the ones from last night I have a suspicion were after you instead. Well...maybe not the elves?" I say turning towards Sam who shakes her head. "I'm a fair bit better at magic than I led you to believe, but I do actually suck at healing."

"Oh!" A devious plan enters my mind, "If we're all traveling together anyway, how about we put the princess here in men's clothing! She would be much harder to recognize then!"

"A good plan," Sam replies. "Let's get moving."

Muahahahaha! Suffer, you spoiled brat!

We all gather ourselves together to set off, Liz staring daggers at me the whole time.

----------------------------------------

I start the enchantment of a few choice rocks I had been picking up on the way. We've seen a few deer hopping this way or that as we progressed, and we're going to need to eat soon. So, simple telekinesis on the rock. Two inverted cones facing each other should provide a good deal of power in whichever direction I'm looking. I'll do a For loop with ten iterations for now just to see where it stands.

"Hey, I'm going to test something out real quick," I notify the group.

Sam stops mid-step, "Do we need to take cover?"

I see Liz and her lady exchange a look in the corner of my eye.

"Shouldn't. Just stay behind me for a second."

I focus on a tree in the distance and feed the mana to the rock. Once I drop it, it rockets toward the tree with a loud bang. The trunk of the tree I had been aiming at disappears leaving behind a shower of mulch, the top half of it toppling away from the road.

Too much power. A quarter of the vertices on the cones and maybe half the iterations. Was that bang the sound barrier? Why does this cost virtually no mana but healing takes all of it?

"What was that!?" Liz stops walking momentarily and nearly shouts, her lady, too, is similarly wide eyed. Sam looks as unimpressed as ever, still walking next to me.

"Oh, we're going to want food soon. I don't have a weapon to hunt with. I was more focused on running for my life than grabbing one of those bandits crossbows last night soo...I'm developing my own way to hunt. Too powerful though, I'll tweak some of it before trying again."

"You're making new spells right now!?" Liz replies aghast. "Why are you even entering the Consociation?"

I drop the next rock, and it shoots off to another tree. No bang this time but the impact on the tree sounds like a dozen lumberjacks hitting it with axes. A near smooth hole runs straight through the trunk of the tree. Halve the vertices again but don't touch the iterations.

"These aren't spells, they're enchantments. I'm enchanting the rocks." I wonder if I can make a self deleting enchantment. Single use enchantment that doesn't rely on deformation of the object to ruin the enchantment. Hmm...

"Princess, speak of this to no one," Sam says before turning to me. "Young master, you offer information far too easily. You should not be telling them the details of what you're doing nor how."

"Yes, ma'am," Liz replies.

"Fine, fine," I reply. Who is Sam to cause an actual Princess to act like this? Seriously, wtf?

I enchant the next rock to give off heat like my earlier clay ball experiment but I make the connection point to the output super thin. As I channel mana into it, it gives off heat for a moment before the output line disintegrates causing the rock to crack, thoroughly destroying the enchantment.

Partial success. Instead of deforming the object to break the enchantment, the enchantment itself deforms the object on collapse. Ideally the object would come out the other side unscathed, but I'll take an enchantment that destroys both itself and the object it was on over nothing. This gives me an idea for a grenade later on.

We walk along in silence for a few more hours before Sam stops and motions for the rest of us to crouch. We all do as she says before she points into the woods. A good distance away is a deer, silently grazing on the small shrubs that are able to grow in the forest. If it's entirely accurate to where I'm looking, then I don't need to ruin the meat in trying for a body shot. I pull the rock I had prepared out of my pocket, aim it at the deer's head, channel the mana into and drop it. It silently flies off towards the deer. I see a spray of blood come off of the deer just before the deer collapses in place.

Sam gets up and starts walking toward the deer, the rest of us trailing in her wake. I guess I just introduced the silenced pistol to a land of magic? Well...maybe not. I haven't seen anyone else that's able to perform just raw telekinesis like this. Usually it's some form of element like fire, or water, or plant, or life, or some other such. Are plants and life considered elements?

"Liz, you and your lady gather firewood. Rebecca, I'm going to instruct you on how to prepare the deer. I'd do it myself, but I require two hands," Sam orders. Liz looks like she wants to protest but says nothing and the two of them move away to find bits of wood for a fire.

In their absence I learn how to skin and slaughter the deer. Well...maybe 'learn' is too strong of a word. I follow Sam's instructions on how to do all of it and she seems satisfied. I doubt I could replicate it on my own. The royal pair come back some time later with two armloads of dead branches and drop them to the ground with a huff.

Building a fire I can do. It was almost built into the boy scouts. I arrange the sticks into a teepee inside a log cabin. Right, I don't have any matches. Or a lighter. Oh yeah! Magic! I excite the molecules underneath the leaves until they catch fire. Magic is so convenient.

As the food nears its' completion of cooking over the open fire, a loud thunder reverberates through the woods. Great.

"That's less than ideal," I say looking up as the first few drops patter through the leaves above us. "Any ideas?" I ask Sam. It's already quite cold this far north. Getting stuck in this without shelter is not going to turn out well.

Sam takes the bottom portion of the deerskin that she had me hang up and walks it forward a bit. Oh. Makeshift tent. I wonder if I can improve it? I close my eyes and imagine the pores on the skin of the animal fully closing. It takes an enormous amount of mana but it does finally complete. Once I open my eyes, I see that the hair from the deerskin has all fully fallen off. Huh. Didn't intend for that to happen, but it does look smoother.

Together Sam and I attach the deerskin to two close together trees that are near the fire and stake the other two corners to the ground.

Well, better than nothing, I guess.

"You don't expect me to share a tent with a man!" Liz huffs.

"It's hardly a tent," I reply sitting back at the fire to eat. "Besides, I'm not currently a man and the alternative is that you sleep in the rain tonight."

"ME!?"

I ignore her and turn to Sam in between bites. Man this really needs salt. "Any idea how much further to the next town? I thought I saw the edge of the forest when the elves attacked."

"That was indeed the edge of the forest, but to the West. We probably have a few more days of walking to exit from the North, and there should be a town just on the outskirts of the forest there."

Maybe we can split up from this princess there? I'm certainly not enjoying her company.