Lurk sat with Resti and experimented with fire spells for a bit, he managed to raise use in his [Fire Magic] considerably when someone was guiding him. But something about the menu was beginning to nag him slightly. It came about when he was talking with Resti about the text she saw when she accepted to transfer the fire spirit over to him. She thought his menu was amazing and wondered how he was able to make it so specific. Which he had no easy answer too. Was it his knowledge of coding? Knowledge of countless fantasy games and similar systems ? or was some outside force making it clearer for him.

[Fire Magic] Raised to 1.5

[Fire Cantrip] Learned

[Fire Bolt] Learned

Lurk stared at the menu and the numbers out in front of each of his skills.

"Why is it when I reach a specific threshold on one of my spells, I learn a spell... But others do not give me a spell when hitting a threshold?... I've automatically learned spells from Holy and Wind but not from Fire." Lurk said to Resti as he tapped his chin staring in front of himself at the menu. Resti was trying to cope with him saying so easily he had these magic abilities.

"Well... I am not entirely sure, but some people learn things easily, when they reach a special threshold.. or when they goto a guild to train their abilities to see if they can unlock them. Like people who fight with swords can learn special abilities they might not normally learn on their own. I do not know myself how as we could not go to a guild to train or unlock our abilities... I learned what I could from mother"

Lurk nodded listening to Resti pondering over what it was guilds did to unlock abilities.

"Hmm so how do you unlock abilities in a guild? Do you know?" Lurk asked gingerly as Resti was reminded of her mother again, and he was feeling it was a tough subject to bring up. He put his hand on hers briefly to give it a squeeze, Resti smiled and shook it off and answered quickly.

"Well Ahem.., you have to register at a guild to receive membership and then you would be allowed to check your abilities with a special item they had at each guild house. It would show you things you could unlock and how to improve yourself. But it required that you had put in work and had experienced how to use your skills. My mother could use fire bolts and fireballs, and was almost ready to learn a special fire shield but could never quite learn it on her own, but she said it was because she did not go train it in proper situations like real combat."

Resti spoke of what her mother had told her when she herself wanted to learn more magic once she began to first be able to cast magic.

"Hmm... So... me learning all these spells is unusual?... But it is only in some areas... I have not learned any special skills for instance in weapon use or shield use... But that human adventurer with the shield seemed to be able to make a magical shield appear... And that... Woman... could shoot arrows really fast..."

Lurk became quiet suddenly and looked away from Resti, she took notice and wondered what was wrong. Lurk had left the girl alone in the cave. At the time she was too distraught over the slave collar and having been hit by Alex, all she wanted was to get out of the cave and be safe. But Lurk seemed to delve on something.

"What is wrong Lurk?..."

"I... Its just I am just regretting something... I feel like I did not resist the curse I told you about. When we were back in that cave and the slaver woman wanted to come along... My first thought was... Why should she be free when she has enslaved people... And I just went with my initial thought... Now I am worried that it will happen again..."

Lurk lamented to Resti, looking back at her.

"It really felt natural back then, I was angry and pumped up from the fight... So it did not even enter into my mind to bring her along... Did she deserve to be left alone to suffer?..."

Lurk sighed and hung his head, Resti could tell he was struggling with regret and fear over it happening again. She could understand it, Lurk was incredibly dangerous especially with his fast learning abilities. But.

"I do not think you want to hurt anyone unless you have too. If the curse forces you to do something it is not your fault...I can tell you are doing your best against it, even for all the other goblins here... " Resti said calmly putting her hand on his. Lurk lifted his head and smiled at Resti.

"Thank you. Right... Let's try this here again..." Lurk shook the subject off like Resti did and tried once more to form a flame in his hand he spray forward. He focused his mind thinking about what he knew about fire, how it required oxygen and how flamethrowers would spray a liquid out that would ignite. Could he do the same imagining mana spraying out as it felt like the fuel.

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Resti looked on as Lurk tried several things, she could feel their unified mana pool sink considerably as Lurk was manipulating mana in a raw and brutal way, this required absurd amounts of mana and she had never seen her mother do this before. Eventually, he managed to shoot out a stream of fire that he could focus on and eject further away. Resti marveled at his control and Lurk tried to teach her this spell that he managed to get working once he hit the next threshold.

[Fire Magic] Raised to 2

[Flamerthrower] Learned

Lurk could not see Resti's number at her magic skill. She could only describe how she felt the flames burn hotter or brighter within her. Her system was a lot more intuitive whereas his was logical and numbered and ordered. But seeing as she could cast the same spells as him and he had already surpassed her in this short amount of time. Resti tried to follow Lurks advice and now he could show her the runes that his system had aligned from his experiment. He was struggling though to show her, but then he realized that when people cast spells the arcane symbols appeared at their hands or at a target location. So magic was able to project images somehow, and it was a requirement for the spells to project runes to make the magic appear.

Lurk burned a lot more mana as he tried to fiddle around with his new idea.

[Light Symbol Cantrip] Learned

"Ah, this will be useful." Lurk said as he cast the spell and projected the arcane symbols and circles required for the new flame thrower spell so Resti could see it.

"Oh that is clever, that saves a lot of scrolls !" Resti said looking at the runes and seeing the moving circles. Despite how different their systems were, once they had either force learned a spell these symbols were universal to them when they had to manifest the abilities. Showing that there was a common system everyone used. But they had different ways of either feeling/observing the system.

But the hard forced way Lurk had done the spell made it complicated and not at all trimmed to perfection. Lurk began to trim of unnecessary parts, making it easier on himself and Resti when they were going over it. Resti was inspired and kept trying when it suddenly fell to place inside her head and she shot off the fire just like Lurk had done. She grinned and Lurk smiled.

"Great!, I need to go out with Vorm and look around for the goblins or humans... We need to find a safe time we can move everyone out of here." Lurk said as he turned off the projected light. He had already dressed long ago but he began to ready his weapon and outside gear. He noticed Resti was fiddling awkwardly with her hair once he finished putting on his pouches and backpack he had made for himself.

"Something wrong?" Lurk asked gently as he squatted down in front of her.

"Uhm... I was just thinking about what I should do... I do not have anyone else back in the kingdom... I know some of the women here... And now I got this baby..." Resti touched her stomach and looked away from Lurk.

"Well... If you want to stay I would be happy... But whatever you want to do I will help you in any way I can." Lurk said as he ran a hand through her hair and touched her neck as she turned to look at him. He smiled at her and she leaned into his hand.

"Thank you..." Resti said her eyes slightly more damp as she smiled back at him, she received a hug from Lurk and he got ready to move out.

Lurk got up from where he and Resti had been training, Emily was the first one he noticed, she had been staring at him and Resti all this time. Her stern looking eyes surprised Lurk a bit, but he moved over to Vorm and patted him on his shoulder and Vorm got ready with his gear as well. Lurk went over to Emily while Vorm was getting ready. Emily looked away looking annoyed.

"Are you ok over here?... Do anyone need anything?" Lurk asked Emily, she had become the spokesperson for the woman group. He had normally come over here with either Sylvie or Resti to translate for him. But this time he went over there and spoke to her in her tongue. This startled her as she looked at him angrily.

"You could speak human all this time??"

"Oh...Ah no I learned just tonight... Uhm... It's difficult to explain..." Lurk wondered how he could explain it, but because he had gotten a proper human connection to his bloodline he suddenly learned the human language when Resti spoke some, just like when he heard his mother speak in front of him back when he was born.

"..." Emily just stared in disbelief before answering

"No... We are all fine, some are still scared and worried you will betray us on your promise... I personally think you will eventually once something dangerous occurs..." Emily stared at Lurk with a cold look.

"I will do my best to get you back to human lands... I have been looking into the slave collars... But they are difficult to grasp... " He looked at the collar on Emily's neck, she had hid it as best she could but it was noticed in the end by Lurk. Alex had seen her and the women outside of Resti's locked cell and had put the collars on her he was carrying with him.

"Yeah... I am sure... " Emily kept a cold front not wanting to be reminded by the collar and the fact she was completely in the control of this goblin if it wanted...

"Ok, I will be leaving out to scout, I hope you can give your aid to Aurk and the others if anything bad happens while we are gone... I hope we can talk later..." Lurk nodded to Emily, he knew he could not convince her of his good nature with words so he would keep showing good intent instead.

Lurk went over to Aurk, Emily stared at his back as he left, gritting her teeth. She saw Lurk cast a spell on Aurk, a holy spell, that he also cast on himself. He was showing his own wounded arm to Aurk that over the days they had been down here in the workshop it had grown a few inches out almost reaching the wrist.

Lurk examined Aurk's that seemed to be mangled a bit from a bad bone set as the healing magic was working on both of them. Emily was perplexed, she had seen this goblin been helpful and caring for both goblin and human... It even managed to sleep with Sylvie and Resti. She had no doubt it was something he had ordered with the slave collar... Learning the human language, yeah right, she heard them learning all night along with the rest of the workshop. But the two girls simply did not show signs of resisting any control... She herself had not felt any commands pushing her down or stopping her... She was angry... But also confused...

Would this goblin follow through on its promise to free them...?