Olea Munroe

I woke up, once again on the floor of this stupid cave, suffering from the mother of all headaches.

I figured there could be some kind of reaction I could feel if the worst had happened to Merry at the time of her death but come on. How was it fair that I had to deal with all the pain of the situation.

Okay, that might not be right. She is the one that died after all.

Soul damage did not seem to be a laughing matter though. Very painful stuff, I could still feel a deep ache in my everything.

My legs were stiff and sore, my back ached, my arms were freezing, my feet were numb, and for some reason even my chest was hurting.

Sure, most of that could maybe be blamed on the cold surface I had fallen asleep on, but really what the bloody hell.

I made it to my feet, really wishing I had a chair to sit on. I looked back at the only well-formed seat in the room and decided that it was not a very appealing place to rest. It may not smell the way something of its nature should but the thought of what happened there made it very unappealing.

I was extremely glad that my diet consisted of mostly magical food now, and I could avoid making use of it to a greater degree than the former tenants.

I decided to lean against the wall to recover my wits, taking note of the fact that my resources, excluding some stamina, were mostly full.

I had to wonder at the missing stamina for a moment since I had just woken up. Did it really take six stamina to stand up and then sit down or was this some sort of effect of the damage to my soul or even moving with mild injuries and soreness? It was probably best to figure all this out some time, but I had no idea how to figure out the difference as of yet.

Another thing for the future me; she would be terribly busy.

Alrighty, time to get back in the game. There were things to do, and I was sure I was forgetting some of them already, but I knew that I wanted to get moving on to this next rank so I could possibly be more useful as I escaped.

I know Corvin said that I should just run, run, and run some more until I got back home but I was not sure if I could leave while the party was just getting started.

Could I leave while Doogan and the others were engaged with the guards above while fighting so fiercely in the name of rescuing me? Should I? I knew the right thing to do was to listen to the higher ups and hop, skip, and jump my way to freedom to avoid being a liability but that did not mean that I wanted to do these things.

Again, future me concerns.

“Hey Rocky, are you still here? I asked.

In answer to my question, or my thoughts on the subject, the small form of my earthy elemental came around the corner of my cell wall. I wondered briefly if he was standing guard or if he had simply been bored and wandered off to investigate other rocks.

He looked about the same, still made of solid stone, broken up only by small cracks at the joints. I really wanted to hand him a plunger and complete his stoney Mario appearance but realized I would also be missing the hat.

“Okay, little guy,” I said to the short elemental, “can you do anything about these bars?”

I pointed and indicated the joins of rock and iron along the cave walls, hopefully being clear enough to indicate what I wanted. It would be nice if we could make some progress on just taking off the bars so I could sneak out the easy way with some judicious use of Stealth and luck.

At my prompting the little guy almost shrugged as he moved over to the wall. He seemed to be just standing there for several minutes before the first sign of movement occurred. It was a subtle thing, and almost impossible to notice.

Rocky stepped aside to reveal a small divot next to the bar. It was only as deep as a penny is wide and I was starting to think that this might not be the best route for escape. Who knew how deep the bars were embedded into the rock?

My friend noticed my thoughts as he plopped on his side and rolled over to me. His heavy body came to a rest before colliding with my feet and he stood up by simply rocking back onto his feet without any form of bending in the joints and if he were one of those old clown style Bop-Bags that would just pop back up after you jabbed them in the nose. It was a very odd, and genuinely nice gesture all told.

He even handed me a penny sized rock after he stood up. I took the coins shaped piece and put it aside in a small niche along the cave wall, saving it for later.

I was not sure if there would be any stone left once his current body broke down after all, and if it did, I was equally unsure as to whether I would be near enough to him to retrieve it.

That being what it was, I set it aside. It was best that I focused on what could be done now, so I took what brief time of concentration I had and shoved it toward the problem of advancement.

It was high time I reached level thirteen.

I cast Detect Magic from my poor postured position before beginning, it was about time I began paying more attention to the way these things worked. That and it was rather cool to see all the swirling wisps of multi-colored light while I felt the tingle of other barely seen forces along the rest of my body.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Magic may be an addictive element.

I sat up straighter and tucked my legs under one another sitting like a proper meditative pupil before I began throwing out some magic.

First, I pulled out my new, or new-to-me, knife and traced a small cut along my palm. I could heal it after I finished. Next up, I invoked my Create Water spell to summon forth some happy water to use as a reagent and let it mix with the blood in my cupped hands.

Every time I thought of using this spell combination it felt as if I were in some cheesy eighties’ movie about the occult. I just had to picture Peter Liapis standing in front of a triangle and reading a book while the faux-mystical music played.

I was confident I would not get that brand of summon in my rituals, but it still felt very weird every time.

I watched as the magic gathered in my hands, bonding with my blood and the water that held it. At the center of the small, gathered pool of water I could just barely make out a small circle of cerulean essence as it expanded to fill the liquid with its own hue. Like the sky reflected on a crystal-clear lake.

I lowered my arms and allowed the form of my summoned elemental to flow from my cupped hands onto the hard stone a moment before the undine-like creature took shape.

“There you are!” I said, with enthusiasm if not volume. There was no need to alert some stray guard to my happiness. They were fully in the camp of preventing happiness at this point. “What happened with the lizard?”

The water elemental just kept looking at me, almost impassively.

“The Sand-Borne Salamander?” I tried using its actual name, and hoped I got it right.

Still the elemental just looked at me, I could sense a growing irritation from the spirit as it stared at me, though I could not figure out why.

It was then that I noticed Rocky pointing at my little conjuration with a small stoney finger fully extended as if taunting the thing. I could even make out a grin behind his mustachioed rock face.

I was absolutely missing something here.

“Okay, what exactly is going on here you two?”

I waited for an answer and got none from Rocky, though he did quit pointing after he saw that I had finally noticed.

In my mind I felt a small bit of disappointment from the spirit, and for some reason a tinge of sympathy from my bonded familiar. I was wondering at first if he was just stalking me with our shared senses and was trying to comfort me in my ignorance before I realized the sympathy was for the water spirit.

‘What gives?’ I whispered through the link.

‘You are so slow sometimes, Olea.’ Came the quick response, ‘Do you have such little respect for the magical creatures assisting you that you cannot even tell when they need something from you?’

I thought about it for a moment, still unsure as to what could be missing here. What could Rocky have noticed and felt the need to ridicule my water spirit for that I had not noticed.

‘Olea… Olea… Olea…’ continued Corvin, ‘I should not be surprised that it had taken you this long, it took a month for you to finally talk to me about the very same thing. Use you bond to communicate instead of talking at the spirit.’

‘Fine!’ I said into the void that was our fading link, I could still hear the caw and cackle from the other end as I muted the connection. I also realized that I had forgotten to ask after bedding.

I focused on that small connection I had with all contracted elementals while wondering as to the limit of even this connection. What would happen if I had a dozen or two or these contracts; I also wondered if I could talk to them while they were on the other plane.

What I got when the connection finally hardened was a sense of frustration-anger-impatience.

I was quite shocked when the feelings came through and almost pulled back far enough to smack my head on the wall, I thankfully stopped just as my hair flattened to my skull. I did not want to pass out again, especially because of something so stupid.

There would be no Adventures of Coma Girl series.

It took a moment longer to realize why Corvin had mocked me, and why Rocky was being such a prat. I had neglected to properly name my very first spirit elemental.

But I had named the earth elemental Rocky.

I could not believe that the spirit was jealous of me naming the earth elemental.

Something new every day.

Okay, here goes nothing.

“I will call you Selene.” I said simply, before elaborating with a little bit of pomp, “It is the name of the Greek goddess of the moon in my home world, and as you remind me of the early night sky, I think it would fit you very well. Any complaints?”

The elemental dropped her form and turned into a flat puddle, making not a single splash in the transformation as if reluctant to let any of her essence be abandoned.

Water tension at work or just plain magic?

Who knows?

I got a mix of happier emotions from the elemental as she rose from her puddle state in a more exaggerated female form, complete with the rough ring of darker blue circling under her seaweed like flowing hair. She had a lot more definition now and I was wondering if the name itself had imbued more meaning into her spirit. I did recall that some cultures insisted that names not only gave people power over you but also had the potential to strengthen you when given.

Something to consider.

Rocky was less amused as I saw him kick a fake pebble with his foot in an awe-shucks kind of act.

It was cute.

Getting all that situated I decided to buff up the party, it was time to get back into killing the evil fish and reptile population of the cave’s waterway.

I burned ninety mana popping up Selene and did a quick check to see what I had regenerated in the meantime.

Mana: 148/214.

Goody.

I beckoned my friends to come closer as I spelled up the party, I would be sending them both into the tunnels this time. Though I did my best to not think of the fact that they would be needing to enter via the toilet, I did not want them to pick up on the negative connotations that the trip entailed and subsequently revolt.

I dropped ten mana on Armor, fifteen mana on Protection from Evil, and ten mana on Water Walk for Rocky. I started the same for Selene noticed that both Water Walk and Armor failed to stick, wasting twenty mana.

After some thought I spent another forty mana on Detect Aura and Detect Magic for the pair leaving me with thirty-nine mana remaining.

I guess I had regenerated only one point of mana between all those spells, it seems I forgot that mana begets mana and that a lack of total mana would negatively affect my regeneration.

After doing the math and seeing that I was basically at eighteen percent of my total I realized that I was probably sitting at around forty percent of my normal regeneration level. I was quite glad I had no more need for magic now and decided to move on.

“Okay, that’s all set,” I said to my pair of elemental spirits, “Time to go!”

They sat there watching me with unblinking eyes for minutes before I had recalled that I had not shared my plan with them, so I spent a few minutes letting them know that I wanted them to traverse the tunnel network and waterways in search of the more blatantly annoying creatures to kill.

I did not want to accidentally kill something cute like an otter or platypus. Granted I had no idea whether they existed as such in this world, but I would take no chances; I had morals, sort of.

They took the plan in stride and made their way to the portal of the tunnel system while I did my best to not think of it as a potty system.

I took almost a half second as they headed into the waterways to debate on the use of the Soul Vault as a private facility before I recalled that my physical body never left this plane even as I traveled back and forth.

Oh well.

As they plopped down into the water below, I set in to using Shared Senses to follow along, not even bothering to approach the toilet to view their landing.

It was time to go hunting.