“Seriously?” asked Wendell. “We’re walking toward a monster that could dissolve us? Shouldn’t we turn around?”

Dakota stopped so suddenly he nearly feel over, “Have you lost your mind? Turn around? It’s been over a week since we’ve camped. And you want to go all the way back?”

Wendell was surprised at the vehemence of his brothers response, “Just a question dude. Could have just said ‘no’ instead of being an ass.”

Dakota hung his head, “Sorry bro. Just feeling frustrated. Like you said, we’ve been walking for over a week. I’m tired and, at times, it feels like these tunnel walls are closing in on me. What I wouldn’t give to find another cavern.”

“Cavern? I mean, I guess. Myself, I want to see the sun. We’ve been on Traum for months and I’ve not even seen the sun yet.”

Dakota stood there with a wistful look on his face.

“Seriously, you forgot the sun was a thing?”

“No, you ass. I was thinking about the night sky. I used to love looking at the stars at night. Look, I’m sorry brother. I don’t know what do to.”

Wendell stepped over and gave Dakota a hug. As he did he felt something wrapped around him and the two were squeezed by Sage’s tale.

“Right direction” Sage projected along her bond to Dakota.

“How do you know?” Dakota thought back to his companion.

“Good air. Close.”

“Sage says we’re close to good air.”

“That’s great but we need rest.” Wendell thought about it and turned to look at the tunnel walls. “It’d be nice if we could cut our way out of the tunned and then put up a wall. Camp out of the way should something else finally decide to come through the tunnel.”

“Well, I have my pick axe. But it’d take me longer to dig a room than what we would spend resting.”

“Carry you both.”

“Sage says she can carry both of us,” Dakota told Wendell.

“She has to be exhausted, too.” Looking toward the drake, “When was the last time you even laid down? It had to be like three days ago.”

“That’s true,” Dakota said while really focusing on his bond with Sage. He could feel her exhaustion. He could feel her trying to hide it. Looking back to Wendell, “Lets keep walking for a bit. If we’re as close as Sage thinks maybe we can make it. In case we’re not, keep an eye out for any sort of creases or crevices that could serve as a starting point for a room and I’ll dig us something.”

As they started walking again Dakota asked, “Can you make a wall of stone to seal us in, if I dig out a room?”

“Just ice and flame right now. I can start working on a spell for stone.”

“How does that work. How do you make a spell?”

“It’s all done by feel. Imagine if you have a bag that you can’t see into. But you can reach in and pull stones out. After pulling the same stone out of the bag a few times you start to notice how that stone feels. What makes it different that the other stones. So the next time you need that stone, it’s easier for you to find it. Well, I know what the stone for wall feels like now. And I know what the one for stone feels like. I just need to focus a bit and pull them out along with the stones for width, height, and thickness. Once I can pull all them out at the same time then I can cast the spell. And once I cast the spell a bunch of times and really get the feeling for it, then a new stone representing this spell gets added to the bag for next time.”

“Damn. That’s pretty cool. How’s that different than what Mira does?”

“Dude, wizards are insane. What Mira is doing is like studying chemistry and physics. She’s memorizing shit that’s like a magical periodic table and all sorts of mathematical equations. Her spell book is just magical formulas. It’s crazy.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s crazy. And Luitwin wanted me to learn it as well. He said that if I could then it would make creating new spells easier. Something about giving me a framework to operate in. But it just felt wrong.”

“You mean it felt hard and you didn’t want to put the effort in?”

“No. That’s true, though. But seriously, trying to learn it just felt wrong. Like, I felt like it would limit my future options.”

“Probably a good thing that you didn’t do it, then. Who knows how all of this works. But if being a wizard is all book learning, you know Liam and Arden are going to both end up being wizards eventually.”

After taking a second to think about it, Wendell nodded his head, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Hell, in a few years those two will probably be creating spells this world has never dreamed of.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The brothers laughed as they continued walking. Soon they were swapping stories, reminiscing about all the crazy antics their group of brothers had gotten up to. Eventually they tired and each took a turn sleeping on Sage’s back but they continued on. When their hunger returned they took a break for Dakota to summon another loaf of magic bread.

“I wonder how this would taste with some nutella on it?” asked Wendell

“I’m not big on the stuff, but at this point I’d take it just to have something different,” Dakota replied. Looking over at Sage, “Why don’t you go ahead and lay down here and take a nap. Wendell and I can swap off standing guard and let you get some rest.

Sage took a moment before shaking her head, “No rest. Close.”

Dakota shrugged, “Okay, if you’re sure.”

Wendell chuckled to himself as he started walking again.

“What is it?” questioned Dakota.

“When she shook her head my first thought was ‘dang, this girl is a beast’ then I realized, she actually is.”

Dakota scratched Sage’s head as they walked along. “Yeah, but I’m worried she’s pushing too hard. We haven’t been together long enough for me to really know what her limits are. I don’t want her to injure herself.”

The group continued walking until they started hearing noise coming from up ahead. They stopped talking and started listening trying to make out the sounds.

“Fighting” said Sage

“Yeah? Well, let’s go see if we can help,” replied Wendell

“Wait,” asked Dakota, “how did you hear that?”

“I’ve been listening to her thoughts to practice my magic. I asked her several days back if it was okay and she agreed. If she focuses on something I can understand it.”

“Okay, that’s really cool. Lets talk more about that later though,” Dakota said as they started to walk faster.

A few hundred yards further and the tunnel crested a hill and they could see there was a fork in the tunnel ahead. At that fork were a number of dwarves, some wagons, and an absolutely ginormous ooze.

“Krrrrawwwaaarrrr” rumbled Sage.

Dakota laid a hand on her, “Stay back. You can’t do much against the ooze and you’ll probably scare the dwarves. Let Wendell handle it.” Wendell looked over at Dakota in shock.

“What? You handled the last one.”

“The last one was like a fifth of the size of this one! That thing has got to be a fifty foot cube.”

“Naa, you’re exaggerating. Let’s get close enough for you to start casting. I bet it doesn’t look anywhere near that big up close.”

“That’s not how physics works Dakota. It’s going to look bigger the closer we get!” Wendell yelled as he continued to walk with Dakota closer to the ooze.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. I’m going to get it’s attention. Get ready.” Immediately after he finished talking Dakota cast [Thaumaturgy] and made the sound of thunder appear. While not overly loud it did echo down the tunnel. This got the dwarves attention but didn’t seem to affect the ooze at all.

“Really? Thunder? It doesn’t have ears.”

“Surely it can feel the vibration though.”

Wendell just shook his head before he started casting [Fire Bolt] repeatedly. He managed to get the fifth one in the air before the first one even hit. As they slammed into the ooze it seemed to want to ignore them and focus on the dwarves it was about to eat. But as each additional one landed, the simple minded beast started trying to figure out what it should do. It could detect the heat from the ones attacking it and they were far. The food was close. So it decided to keep trying to eat. It could chase this other food afterwards.

“Looks like your fire worked about as well as my thunder. Do your mind voodoo shit.”

Wendell glared at his brother, “The mind voodoo shit requires me to be a lot closer.”

Dakota looked at Sage for a moment and then replied, “Sage says we can ride on her back. She’ll get us closer and if we need to run, she’ll get us away from it.”

The two quickly climbed onto Sage, all the while the dwarves continued fighting, and losing to, the ooze.

Once in range Wendell cast his [Hallucinate] spell and was shocked when it failed to land. So he tried again, and again it was rebuffed. “What the hell. Either it has some sort of mental resistance or a really high will.

Dakota just shrugged, “I don’t know what to tell ya brother. Try something else?”

Wendell casts [Pierce the Mind] and for a fleeting moment it felt like his will was up against that of the creature but he pushed through and the attack landed. Again and again he cast the spell as Sage carried them closer. After the fourth attack the ooze stopped attacking the dwarves and started moving toward Wendell.

“Stop here Sage” ordered Dakota

Wendell continued casting.

[Lightening Bolt]

[Ice Bolt]

[Psi Bolt]

[Fire Bolt]

“What are doing? Why not stick to the mental spells?”

“Those spells cost a lot of mana. I’m just throwing out cheap spells to make sure he keeps coming this way while my mana can recharge.”

As they watched the ooze close in, Wendell started casting more mental attacks which the creature was now failing to resist. But he was worried that this might be a never ending battle. “Any idea how damaged it is?”

“No clue but I think I found it’s brain.”

“What? Where?”

Dakota pointed at something but the ooze was still far enough away that his finger could have been pointing at any of it.

“Seriously? It just looks like you’re pointing at the ooze.”

“Dude, there’s something in there, roundish, that’s moving toward the other side of the ooze. It looks like the ooze is trying to move it away from you. Every time you attack it, that thing seems to shake a bit. I bet if we could break that, it’d kill it.”

Wendell looked until he saw it, “It’s on the far side of the ooze. You going to go climb in there and grab it?”

“Hell no. But maybe you could burn a hole to it?”

“You saw how little effect my fire bolt spells had.”

As the two were arguing a dwarf from the caravan ran up behind the ooze and plunged something into it, near the spherical object Dakota was talking about, before turning and running away. Immediately the area around the object was fizzing and bubbling.

“Did he just shove a bomb into the ooze?” asked Dakota

Before Wendell could reply, the sphere thing was pushed out by the smoke and gases coming from the ooze. As soon as the sphere was free the entire creature lost surface tension and a wave of ooze splashed down and out, spraying the Sage and her riders as well as the dwarves.

Wendell wiped his face as he answered, “That was freaking cool. Let’s go ask what it was!”