The Caverns, Near the Town of Eldor. Troug, 8th.

Olea Munroe

Gee, these little tikes were more worried about me than I had originally thought. I also needed to stop considering people in their teens as tikes. What the hell was wrong with me, thinking they were some naive NPCs, created for my amusement, as if they were just tools used by some grand, or not so grand, designer.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I said again, they did not seem to believe me even as I had totally expressed the same sentiment more than once in the past minute. It was as if they doubted my constitution. That must be it, they were all obviously younger than me, though I was still of a height with Mouse due to my somewhat confused elven heritage.

Seriously though, I am not meaning to disparage elves or any other race with similar traits, but was I not supposed to be asked about the form I would wish for in this world, hell I would have chosen to be a dwarf. I could totally rock a moustache, assuming female dwarves had facial hair. Yeah, that was never really a settled topic in those deep-closeted Dungeons and Dragons’ cloisters. One of the many ways to spark a grand debate, and probably a few illicit conversations. There was some speculation in this assumption as I had only been an observer in one or two games between established cliques while getting tossed around the foster system. I never really got the full tutorial before moving on, though some overly excited people had tried on several occasions.

Okay, they were staring again. This is what happens when I get distracted, so much for having a high Wisdom to help my focus. I would need to investigate that, was the system lying about the voraciousness of these stats?

Nope, nope. Focus… Focus!

“Is anyone else hungry?” I asked more to distract them from my obvious distractions. It did seem to be the right call as I heard Quinn’s stomach rumbling and saw the look of glee jump into Derek’s eyes.

A chorus of agreement was all I needed as I began to channel some mana into the spell.

“Create Food” I muttered the spell out and kept a steady stream of mana going into the spell, feeling the slightest tingle run through my body.

The feeling was not an odd one as I had felt it to higher degrees in the past casting spells. It was diminishing in intensity the more I used the spell though, as if I were acclimating to the flow through my body. More future research required.

Mana: 184/204.

That could wait. I opened my hands from atop the small blanket we had spread to serve as a table for our impromptu meals. Honestly, I was still of the camp that would argue the ground was cleaner than this blanket. I was fairly sure Derek was in the same camp, or just did not care as he was hungry, and it was food. The girls though, they were ever the prickly bunch when the topic was brought up, grateful did not mean accepting.

Whatever happened to the five-second rule, was that even a thing here? It had to be.

I moved my hands away as I looked at the girls, Mouse was practically salivating while Quinn was just looking at the blanket of food. Malory was casting glances about at the randomly patrolling toughs that were ever-present in the cavern.

That was another thing I had noticed, there seemed to be no order among the guards walking the caged domes. Some would occasionally stop and stare at some comely lass, or in some cases even the lads. Derek had noticed this practice and was always quite unnerved when he noticed the behavior. Right with you there, I was close enough to average and wearing very loose clothing which got my leers from most every one of the open gawkers.

Twice a day the guards would make orderly visits to each dome to issue small rations to the children and teenagers, just enough food to avoid malnourishment, and water to avoid dehydration before they would move on to the next.

It seemed logical if I were to think about it from their perspective, they saved on food and cut back on the need to escort the stock of merchandise to the dunny. I was being generous as the few times I had been to the area it was just a small cave with a flowing stream under some rocks with a bench placed atop it.

With such luxuries it was amazing that they felt the need for cages at all, they could advertise their fine conditions to the world and have a slew of volunteers for such a life. Gah, I really needed to start working on the plan.

“Olea…?” came the voices of Malory and Quinn, I noticed that they both shared a look after speaking at the same time. It was rather cute in a sisterly love kind of way, although they shared no obvious blood relation, confinement could be its own form of sisterhood, I supposed.

“I am still here… Just.” I started before changing direction, “Do either of you know how many guards are down here? I have only ever seen a dozen or so at a time.”

I had had a tough time telling one guard apart from another in the short amount of time I had been down here, it was obvious that I should be a little more reliant on the locals that may have been down here longer, or perhaps had a better eye for details. I knew I was not fit for that role; I knew my strengths.

“Ummn, twenty?”

“Seventeen?”

Again, the answers came in unison from the pair of older girls. I looked at Mouse who was concentrating ridiculously hard. Derek was frowning in thought as his fingers twitched at his sides.

“There are forty-seven guards on rotation, with five that only come down for special duty.” He said not yet looking up, “I think they have one or two healers on staff that come down for emergencies though, I remember seeing two robed guys when the little dwarf kid tried cutting himself open with a rock a week ago.”

He kept frowning for a short amount of time afterward, oblivious to us mortals left speechless as his ability to spout out his keen observations. I may have misjudged him a little. Oh well.

“Derek…” Mouse muttered, looking slightly upset, perhaps at losing to the only boy in our little cage.

I shared a look with Malory as she spared a smile to the dejected girl, and she looked away as if I had caught her doing something improper. Such timid people.

“Okay, we can round up to fifty, sixty guards. Just to be safe.” I turned to Derek after my little statement, “How often do they change shifts, or whatever it is that they do?”

“They seem to swap half the guards out every six hours, I do not often see the same guards come back until twelve hours later or so. Sometimes a few of the guards do not come back down till the next day.”

“Right,” I said, “It seems like they may split shifts to keep folks alert, while also keeping some to bridge gaps in surveillance to spot habits. Though I am curious as to why they would need to worry about something like that with kids here, and who could be so devious as to think up such a strategy outside of a film director.”

“Film?” Derek asked, the girls were patiently waiting for me to finish, much more polite.

“Never you mind that, moving on!” I pointed to the other cages in our immediate vicinity, each one housing another four huddled figures. “We need to get ourselves an army. Does anyone know our neighbors yet?”

“They rarely talk much, most of them are too scared and hungry to do anything but sit there.” said Quinn.

“Quinn is right, we have not heard them talking even among themselves after the first day or so after they arrived.” This was from Malory who was looking between Quinn and myself.

“Well, let us see what we can do about that problem.” I turned to Derek then, “I want you to start bothering the neighbors, get them to talk to you. Be annoying, be nice, do whatever you think you will need to do to get them to respond and then we can let them in on a few of the details.”

“What details, we…” Derek began before I cut him off.

“Details we will iron out later,” I told him before turning to the other girls, “You three will help Derek out when his annoyance levels seem to be not working. Use Mouse to lure in some people if you need to, keep it quiet so the guards do not get a reason to grow suspicious of an increase in noise levels.”

I really did not want to attract the attention of the guards, especially as the red clothed one had not been back since I had seen him that one time. He gave me all kinds of creepy vibes. I wanted to avoid that one, nay I say, I needed to avoid him. He just screamed psychopath.

“What will you be doing, Miss Olea?” came the soft question from Mouse, bless her heart.

“I’ll be making food for the new recruits, as well as playing with some other ideas.” I said, needing to get a feel for what my new spells could do before I could finalize some of my target goals.

“Would that not leave you unable to think though? Surely you would get sick from mana fatigue.” Malory said, seeming concerned for my current state of mind.

“Oh no, I will be fine. I think I can do a good fifteen servings an hour if I only use Create Food.” I said, as quite a matter of fact.

Malory looked to be thinking as I said that, while the others did not react at all. I mean, I could easily keep pace with the random vending machine of a spell I had. Ten mana to kick it into action and then channeling would only use five mana per second. I remembered Help-chan saying something about the initial cost being higher as I needed to empower the pathway or conduit for the spell and then it would hold until I canceled the channeling. It seemed perfectly fine to me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“May I ask, how much regeneration do you receive for your mana, Olea? It is okay if you do not want to answer me, I know it is rude to ask a stranger about such things.” Malory said, before looking a little confused and asking another question. “Why make so many? Will they not all evaporate once the mana decays?”

I did not know that particular taboo, but I suppose it makes sense, most people tend to get a little defensive when you ask personal questions. What could be more personal outside of the bedroom than a question that addresses a core building block of your physical existence?

Her other question though, I was not quite sure how to breach the subject of my Soul Vault. Was it a rare ability among the Soul-Blessed skills? I just had no idea, although Doogan had told me to keep those particular talents to myself. He had yet to steer me wrong in anything but culinary choices, so I decided to avoid that line of questioning altogether, though I doubted I would be able to fully skirt the issue forever. They would surely wonder where all the food was going, I had already stored several pounds of magical food away.

Yes, my Soul Vault was currently filling with potatoes. I was really hoping to see something new in there soon. I had given my friend some directions to get me some real food when he could. I was not quite sure if he had found some coins to purchase some much-needed food to alleviate my boring diet, as I had made sure to mention that as soon as I remembered that he could also make use of my Soul Vault.

“I am sure it will be fine, so long as we rotate the stock a bit. They last long enough that they will not be going to waste.” I had a sense that they would last ten hours or so outside of my storage, and forever inside. I loved my fancy new soul power.

Using it was a near-seamless action, I would only need to spare a moment of thought to my desired action and poof, item stored. I also found that by concentrating I could cast my awareness inside the space, invoking this talent had given me some new insights into the usefulness of the skill.

The first thing I had noticed when entering was that my consciousness seemed to inhabit a body, my body. Or rather it seemed like my body, though I could sense that I was still in the outside world. I could navigate the space I had inside the skill by willing myself into motion, steps were not needed inside though I had quickly discovered that I felt quite nauseous when I did not go through the motions of normal locomotive transportation, yes, I had to walk. It felt a like a bit of a challenge at first to just will myself to move about, but I gave that front up quickly when I started getting a headache. Nope, not going to risk puking in my soul. If it were possible to do, I was not even going to experiment with the functions of this other body.

Another thing I had found was that inside the vault time was truly stilled, it did not stop the passage of time for things inside as I had originally thought it would. It seemed that the space itself was outside of time, possibly occupying a space like the In-Between that TK had taken me to after I bid goodbye to my helpful dragon friend. I made this discovery as I inevitably got myself distracted inside sorting through the various mushrooms and potatoes that had piled up. I knew I had been inside for an age or two, but when I snapped out of it and shifted into reality, I realized that no time had passed. Not a second had managed to sneak by, I received not a single stare or odd glance as I was wont to get when I got lost in my thoughts. Further experimentation would be required.

I was tempted to jump into using my Forum to communicate with my friendly, neighborhood Raven but decided that I had enough distractions for now. It would be swell to have little meetings inside the vault that could be held without losing time in the real world, though my brain almost went down a thought line regarding the possibility of locking others out of such conversations by not initiating the skill at the same time, could I use it and then not see the other person enter as they were frozen in a moment of time without being able to engage the skill from their side.

Enough of that, focus…

“...sure.” was all I heard from Malory as she turned away to help coordinate the recruiting efforts.

I focused on my casting again, calling up my Create Food spell to get a good dose of the tingles. It was growing much less noticeable, a smaller sensation with each casting. It left me curious but not altogether concerned. I would figure it out later, I was sure.

After amassing a large pile of random fungus and tubers, all wrapped in various forms of dry moss and leaves of an unknown species I called Mouse over to store the treasure for distribution, I had squirreled away a goodly portion to my growing horde, checking to see that I still had not received any alms from my freedom-rich friend.

Mana: 78/204.

“Meat pies… My kingdom for a meat pie.” I found myself muttering quietly.

Derek was the first to hear me as he shot me a glance while leaning on the bars of our little cage, I could see a huddled form leaning slightly into the bars of a neighboring cage and assumed he was doing his job as well as he could.

Mouse was to the other side of the enclosure watching as Quinn tossed a pair of wrapped mana-taters to another teen on the other side of the gap.

The only problem I could detect was that the other people, those not in our cage, were beginning to stir up a fuss. They did not catch onto the quiet nature of this revolt I was planning. I sure hoped that did not come back to bite me on the arse.

I, in my musings on the substance that was the world, eventually discovered that my mana regeneration fluctuated greatly as I expended more of my mana. Now, I was not someone to consult for advanced algebra, let alone the fundamentals of my new reality, but I could tell that my regeneration value would drop as my mana pool decreased. I estimated that it was ten percent less mana regeneration for every twenty percent of my mana that I was missing. This must be a side effect like the mana-fatigue Malory had alluded to.

Seeing that my maximum regeneration was one hundred and fifty points per hour, I would say that I would normally wait an hour to get back to full, but if this tracked, I would be waiting two hours to get back to full as I was regenerating at half of that. Pacing would be important moving forward.

Looking at the other spells I was itching to try left me feeling slightly annoyed, Wind Walk would cost thirty-five mana to cast, while Conjure Elemental Spirit would eat up another thirty. Topping that was the passive from Wind Walk that would consume part of my mana regeneration as an upkeep cost.

I decided to refresh my brain on the relevant details of the skill.

Wind Walk: This spell creates a field of moderate wind control for use by the wielder. It can be subtly altered by the target of the spell to shift the winds and allow for faster movement while lowering stamina consumption. Unlike other spells you will benefit from both Intelligence and Wisdom while receiving minor bonuses from your overall Dexterity and Constitution.

Rank Two: Your skill now invokes a passive benefit whereas you may expend a portion of your mana regeneration to maintain a lessening of your weight. Not unlike gravity magic, this will allow you to somewhat alleviate the pull on your body by external forces, be they natural or other. Further decreases the Stamina cost of many actions. Passively increases control over the magics of Wind and Air.

Rank Three: You spell now has a greater duration and shall consume less of your Mana and Stamina while in affect. Weight is further decreased as you become less bound by external forces. You may now construct a thin membrane of air to use as a temporary contact point.

Rank Four: At this Rank you will see an increase in strength for your elemental constructs, allowing you to exert more pressure upon them before they fail. Your passive will now also give a bonus to your overall speed, and to be less bound by the forces of nature that would hold you back. Steps and other constructs created while making use of this spell now have their costs integrated into the upkeep of your passive ability and will not fail until you leave the range determined by your Level and Wisdom.

There it was, rank two was my passive ability portion for the skill. What caught my eye as I looked over the skill once again was the small line that stated an increase in my elemental constructs and their power. I was curious as to whether that would translate to my other spells, would it boost my conjured allies, or would it only apply to the Wind Walk spell, the sad thing was that I could no longer test the theory myself as I had both spells and had not cast the conjuration skill before. I was missing a base line measurement.

Oh well, I could find a book if I ever had time for reading. Or had the inclination to do so. I could hire someone to get me a cliff notes version and tell me the highlights. That would probably be the better option. Yep, outsourcing the tough stuff.

Mana: 91/204.

Impatience is a virtue, yep. I needed something to do while my mana recovered.

So, I did the most logical thing I could think of, I counted my food items.

I would not be judged for this course of action; I was doing the only thing for which I was currently suited. I did not want to involve myself in recruitment as I was quite sure that there might be one or two people in here who would judge me as slightly abrasive, or less that perfectly understanding. I would not even fault them for it, I was a bit much sometimes, I was self-aware enough to recognize that fact. I tended to be either intensely focused or too easily distracted to make the other party feel as if I cared about what they were speaking of. I did care, it was just that my mind would always wonder.

Work in progress!

After several curious looks from my fellows, and their slowly growing sphere of co-conspirators, all of which I studiously ignored, I check my mana stores again.

Mana: 201/204.

Two hours counting fungus, time well spent.

With my mana nearly full and my stockpile of food well into the double, and nearly triple, digits; I felt confident that I could now focus on spell research.

I started off by launching a full-throated cast of Wind Walk, wanting to have the passive reactivated as it made me feel all fluffy inside. Yes, fluffy, I remembered feeling super light and bouncy when I had the spell up last time, though that may have been the result of blood-loss. I would find that out today!

As the words left my mouth, I heard a gasp from Malory. I swear she was so easily excitable. I also felt the light feeling in the core of my body signifying the passive taking hold to add more weight reduction to my body. I did not know how to judge the Stamina reduction as I was sitting here in a cage, but I could check on that when I had more room to run.

Aside from the warm feeling of the spell wrapping me in a comfortable blanket of air, I noticed a strong tingle, nearing the feel of pins and needles through my entire body.

Side effects of the upper tier spell, or something else? I was not sure, and I could, as usual, address the issue later.

Next up, I prepared for my first casting of Conjure Elemental Spirit, I happened to remember that the spell required reagents for activation to be successful. To fix this issue I conjured a pool of water into my cupped hands through judicious use of Create Water, remembering only before I chanted the spell that I could toss in more mana to upgrade its strength, as well as mix in some blood for a much stronger connection still.

Lots to remember for some of these spells, I was not looking forward to the requirements of other, more advanced spells.

I bit my lip hard, it hurt quite a lot, but I wanted to be sure I did it right the first time. At the first taste of coppery tang, I sucked at the not-so-small cut before spitting into my small collection of elemental water. This could totally be made to resemble a very dark Hollywood ritual if I had the mind to commit to some brooding, and self-introspective monologuing.

I waited for the blood to get well and mixed, measuring the opacity of the water by eye, I may also have uttered a whispered spell of Detect Magic. I was very curious as to whether I could watch the magic come together, or maybe see something profound. Okay, I may have read far too many fantasy novels to pass some of my more confined time. It happens.

As the spell took hold, I began noticing small eddies of red light whirling together with blue-white strands inside the captured water.

It was ready. Probably.

Mana: 163/204.

Time to try my new toy out for the first time. I focused on the process in my mind, concentrating on my desire to imbue the spell with a full investment of mana. Holding the image in my mind, I cast out with the full weight of my will behind the thoughts and image in my mind.