I woke up and turned to ask Horace how long I was out. There was no Horace. Monica wasn't around either. I jumped to my feet. I was on top of a small pile of leaves, the dark forest all around, the forest dark all around. No light was coming through the canopy, the visibility provided by various fluorescent mushrooms.
Whe.., wha.., why? What the hell? You do.. don't just give someone a warm bed and then... This?! I teared up. I mean, fucking hell? I could accept a stupid fucking adventure in the wilderness, when it was all I bloody had!! I flopped onto the ground.
Deep breathes, deep breathes. "FUCK YOU!!" With a shout I got back up. Alright, which fucking direction do I go in? I twirled around for anythign interesting to provide a random direction. After making an almost full rotation I stopped and turned back a little. There was a comic nailed to a tree with a dagger.
It was drawn much like that style people used, shortly before photography was invented. I always liked it, kind of a proof that anyone dedicated enough, could be competent at drawing.
The comic portrayed a little girl following an arrow on a tree, shooting some balls at spiders and then eating a happy picnic with Horace and Monica. I guess... with how I acted, they might have assumed I'd just accept any change in scenery without much care.
I picked up the dagger and turned to a colony of mushrooms near the tree. I prodded them. As I did, they turned from their shades of pink, blue and green to red. They also got all wrinkly. I angered mushrooms.
Filled with giggles I more carefully looked around. A tree to my left had an arrow carved into it, pointing upwards. After a shrug, I waddled towards, hopefully, a picnic.
I didn't even get twenty steps beyond the arrow tree, when I hear skittering from behind, immediately interrupted by loud screeching. When I looked back, a bunch of waist high spider, were jumping up like panicing cats. The mushrooms I prodded were bigger and their caps tore up at the top, looking like nightmare maws.
Right. I waddled on, I wasn't even there. I stopped, drew a line forward in the dirt and looked back. I was going straight. Hopefully, wherever the old people waited, was wide enough I wouldn't walk past it.
After a time, just as I was starting to forget about the spiders, something hit my back. I tumbled and when I looked back I already had everything wrong opening wide to bite into my face.
"Away!!" With a shout I slid back and the spider got one of it's mouth claws bent into it's teeth stuff. It screeched in pain as it bit it off. Fuck. I raised an eyebrow, this thing had more claws around it's face than it had legs.
"Away." Nothing. I focused on the maw, on the crawling chaos of everything wrong with this thing and PUSHED. Something small escaped me and flew into the spiders mouth. The creature dropped and clawed around itself. I run to the left, where my dagger flew off when I was hit.
I pushed the dagger, into the space between a spider butt and front and jumped back, falling on my butt.
After a couple breathes, I got up. I focused on the... Well I was pushing? Pulling from? I put all my attention onto the spiders head and released. It caved in. If I could do that, then it was probably better to leave the dagger. Who knows when I'd just.. fall onto it and stab myself. Since I couldn't hold it well, I wouldn't be able to properly protect myself with it anyway.
I walked to stand in front of the spider and continued to waddle wherever it was I was heading. I looked back and shuddered. I could imagine those things reaching an adults waist, I'd be a single bite for such a thing.
I kicked some mushroom nearby and sped up. Short while later, I heard skittering again, but the mushrooms screamed and I think I was safe for a while.
Slowly, the forest became brighter. At first I felt relieved to finally be reaching a clearing, but the light trembled. Once I got closer to it, it was hundreds of fireflies of various sizes, from my pinky to my forearm, fliting around the canopy.
I wasn't sure if I found the scene absolutely breathtaking or overwhelmingly disgusting. Looking closer, around here, fireflies... were a little more literall. Their thoraxes smoldered, occasionally bursting out in flame, whenever the bugs hit something. As I was observing the curious creatures, I stepped into something crunchy. Beneath me, was a burned spider corpse. I circled it and waved to the fireflies.
What a pleasant walk. It felt, nostalgic. I think Madeline had a similar wood by her home, there was some warmth spreading within me, a recollection of someone large carrying me around and letting me pet various creatures.
As the warmth began turning into a sense of abandonment, something tackled me from the right. It was becoming a thing, wasn't it? I blasted myself away, but the pressure on my shoulder didn't abate.
I looked down, and a large, dark brown and green squirrel was biting into it. For an animal as large as me, it seemed rather weak. It even scratched without success against my chest. I giggled and reached out to pat it on the head, when one of it's claws snagged on my forearm. That HURT.
In sudden panic, I blasted at the creature. It let go and shook it's head, I blasted into it again. The animal dropped, I blasted more. It tried to get up, so again and again and again and again, until a squelch resounded. I felt a little lightheaded.
I looked at my arm, and the pain flared up. There was a deep gash, on the outside of my left forearm. My vision darkened and I dropped onto the ground.
Something heavy landed on me. Through half closed eyes, I saw two large, round, black shapes framing something brown. My vision instantly cleared, I was staring up at a giant bug face. My arm burned and my pain exploded, something else exploded and my ankles burned.
The firefly Screeched. I Pushed myself back, half a bugs carcass flew off me and I was sliding back. My ears were ringing and I looked around disoriented. The ground was turning red and raising up. I kept pushing myself back. After a couple slides, I hit my head on something hard.
I got roused by a cacaphony of schreeches. A fucking nightmare opera all around me.
"Th... ...te ...ugh" I got picked up and my pain began to wash away.
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When my head cleared, I was greeted by the sunset painting the sky orange, it was such an idyllic view. I got taken out of it, by my rumbling stomach. I looked to the sides, at a blanket, I laid on the edge of, were picnic boxes with food.
Besides Monica was a plate of caviar, I crawled over to it and took it away from her. I walked to the food boxes and picked out random sandwiches. Having gathered food, I sat down next to drink pitchers. The adults moved to speak, so I sent boops at their faces. The boops splashed against them harmlessly, but the message was clear. I got to eat in peace.
I decided to pass the time with some reading. "Status."
Name: Mads Race: Lesser Devil/High-human Strength: 2(7) Titles Endurance: 4(9) ... ... Mind: 11(13) Talents Soul: 15 ... ... Well: 15(15) Shell: 12(13)
I guess if titles and talents were that easy to get, I'd already have something just for breathing. I wonder, my Soul is growing fast... maybe it needs to be more in sync with the body to provide full extent of itself?
"So, whats my evaluation?" I asked and sighed contentedly, the apange juice was good. Orple juice?
"You can use your Well and your strength matches the stats you told us." Answered Horace. "We will be able to proceed with some proper spellcasting lessons."
"Is it normal for children to hit that hard with magic?" I asked and shoveled a large spoon of caviar into my face.
"We usually wait with awakening until a child is ten, they're less prone to accidentally breaking things in tantrums." Trilled Monica in giggles. "But your stats are pretty normal for a nobles child."
The sun hid and the sky sugar greeted me once more. If there is a personification of the night sky in this world, I just might propose to them.
"Why don't we tuck you in for the night, Mads." Said the man while getting up. "Oh, and the dagger you dropped. It's yours."
I took it and got picked up. I put it in my lap and practiced shooting mana into the sky.
"I apologize for leaving you in the woods alone, without an explanation." Horace said over my head.
I booped his nose with some mana. "You left the picture. I grew a little from the experience too."
I tried shaping the mana, but it seemed, I could only chose how condensed it was, or how it focused. I tried to make my hair float and was somewhat successful, making it jump up continuously. At low power, it felt more like using an arm I didn't know I was missing, rather than sending out energy.
Actually walking into the bed to sleep, felt refreshing, even if the idea of going to sleep was a little scarry. Once I laid down, I found nothing from todays events haunted me. Instead I just felt cold. "Jon? Get me a teddy bear tomorrow." I'm sure there was a Jon that heard me.
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Dear Diary,
My fingers hurt. Today I was playing violin, piano, singing, waving around daggers... It was rather refreshing to cast magic, though for now, I was only refining how I released mana.
Still, out of everything, the violin was the worst. Did I already complain about my fingers?
Sincerely, Mads.
Ps. It's 9.7.946
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"Do I really need to practice violin?" I complained for the nth time, while putting down the instrument.
As usual, Horace raised an eyebrow and asked, "What are the ways to raise the mind stat to maximum?"
I grumbled and answered, "Become a once in a generation genius in a single subject, or master a little bit of absolutely everything..." I sighed, picked up the devils favoured plaything and tried to repeat after the musical Cate.
Instructor occasionally joined in, improvising and speaking the proper musical language. I could imagine how fun it would be to be a real part of that in the future, but for now, it was mostly distracting.
But necessary. I think there was a similar teaching method on Earth, young children would be taught to play instruments as if speaking an actual language, rather than study notes and composition. I couldn't remember what it was called... and I made another mistake, as far as the ones I could hear went.
"Again." Rang out from the old Lord of the Dark. Again I went.
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Dear Diary...
... I can write Garilian well now. I am to move on to train my soul and mind in meditation... by writing down everything I've studied in school in my previous life.
I will not write in you for many months.
Sincerely, Mads.
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"We will be moving on to more difficult exercises." Rang out a voice I didn't recognize. When I looked to the door, a... gnomish? woman floated from inside. Her chin lenght hair, seemed to be made out of ice and refracted the midday sunlight. She wore frosted over glasses and large, round, golden earrings. Her outfits simply consistet of light blue pantalons and a white jacket with puffy shoulders. Oh, she was also positively african. Well, here it was an island continent by the name of South. Yep, just South.
Some people travelled south, to find the edge of the world and instead found a continent. You'd think flat earthers would be more creative.
I nodded and gestured for the balcony rail by my table. "Which exercises? I usually had an open window now?" I asked.
"Your mana. You will start learning to form shapes with it." She answered and sat at the opposite end of the table, on a set of magic circles she formed. "My name is Anastasia and I will be replacing Headmistress Monica starting today."
"Why does she have to leave?" I asked after I gulped down a bite of chocolate cake.
"She's been shirking her duties." Came the answer. The woman withdrew a cup of steaming something from a magic circle and set it down before herself.
We ate in silence. I was curious what types of exercises she'd give me, but I suspected, if I asked, she'd have me do them right away.
Once I finished my cake, I stretched my fingers. A shame this world didn't have levels and stat points. I'd love to just put like twenty into endurance.
"Well then, let's get to work." Anastasia informed me and a string floated over from her. "You will envelop it in your mana and try to form a circle. You will do so until your next class."
The woman flew over the rail and dropped. I tapped my fingers on the table and got to it. The faster I got through basic exercises, the faster I'd get to have fun experimenting.
After five songs of just holding the string in a ball of mana, I shot it off over the edge of the balcony. Hopefully it fell on the terrace below, rather than grass.
I climbed down my chair. Just a half a corridors worth and the entire stairs from third to ground floor and I will get to search for a string. The stairs were important. While Soul could shore up my lack of Strength, without the latter, I'd grow up to look like a skeleton.
Again outside, there was a Cate with the string in her hands, waiting for me. I recieved my study implement and sat next to the forest path, in the shade of the trees.
I tried using mana with different intensity, various ball sizes, poking with weak bursts. The string just flailed. I laid on my back and threw the ball with string between my hands.
Finally I just put the string on my face and tried to enter minimal amount of mana into it. The magic passed through the object. I kept trying.
I kind of missed the spiders and the rest. Maybe I'd ask a Jon or Cate to take me to the woods once I had free time again. What sort of difference would the last two weeks make?