Troug, 14th.

“Cold…” I couldn’t help but voice my complaints aloud as I shivered in the chill air of the cave network I had escaped to. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that none of the people in that room could fit through the narrow stone chute that served as the chamber pot for their cell.

I had several bruises on my body now thanks to the few protruding knobs of limestone I came in contact along the way but at least my dip in the freezing water had served to remove any evidence there may have been of other things attaching to me. Small favors and all that.

I took the time to observe my surroundings once again. It was cold and dark, though I could see the faint glow of magic along the edges of the water where the stream met the rock shelf. It was almost the only source of contrasting light in the entire network of smooth stone, and I was thankful for the effect. The other source of light, though very dim, was the small, clumped knots of moss that grew in various alcoves above.

I do believe I would have had less than zero hope down here without my skills ability to show me more of the magical spectrum; it was dark.

I recalled the direction my familiars had progressed down the tunnel system and began my arduous journey onward even as I recalled the other set of clothing I had tucked away in my vault. The woman had left me the clothing with that lovely little brush I had used to tackle my hair earlier, a task that now seemed wasted as my hair was once again an utter mess.

Sigh.

I worked at changing my clothes as I walked, wondering if I would have been able to change my pants if I had an extremely high Dexterity score and could somehow run using only one leg. It was ridiculous but the image did help me lighten my mood a bit, along with the fact that I was mostly dry after changing.

The new boots were still freezing cold and squishing as I walked.

Taking another peek into my vault, I took an inventory of sorts.

Wet clothes.

Knife.

Pile of food. (I swear I am not a hoarder; I am absolutely sure that my stock of mushrooms and orange potatoes will be useful someday.)

Small collection of correspondences from friends that I would be keeping for posterity. The concept seemed quite novel to me, and I was totally going to keep them all as souvenirs of a sort.

Last but not least was my small collection of elementally charged reagents.

This pile was quite diverse as it contained things that would presumably serve as catalyst for my conjuration spell. I saw the torches, static filled flasks, a striker for the torches, hunks of wood, and some small bundles of wrapped earth. I also noticed that some of those bundles of dirt had large collections of vegetation clumped within. Maybe those would allow me to summon my very own Alec Holland into the world.

I took a few more moments as I mentally shuffled through my inventory, not fully entering into the space so as to keep moving. While being inside the skill itself provided a severe stop in flow of time on the inside, I did not currently see a reason to make use of it, I was making progress and really did not need a lot of time for thinking.

I will also confess that sitting in that space had a tendency to remove the urgency that I felt I would need to keep moving forward. It was far too easy to get complacent and I was not sure what would happen if I stayed inside too long as my mind flashed back to a period in time that I had nearly forgotten where a feral version of myself stood defending a stupid murder-flower on a pile of corpses.

“Nope. Ending that thought right there.” I did not want to think about that right now, more time for stupid trauma processing later. Although I did make another little promise to myself that I would be looking for a way to hurt the entity that had cursed me using a stupid cow; I was totally eating a hamburger when I got back to South Jaga.

After looking at my available resources I decided to make use of my Conjure Elemental Spirit spell. I’d be using mana when I needed to be conserving it, but I had to face the fact that I would probably get murdered by some random monster if I happened upon it in the dark while alone.

Yeah, best to be safe. Though I had to spend several more moments thinking of which one to summon. It would likely not be the easiest decision as I had several ingredients and no real idea of which would be the most useful to me at the time.

The forces of the world interrupted my thoughts then with a long-drawn-out stream of water-chilled air flowing up the tunnel from below that set my teeth to chatter.

“Conjure Elemental Spirit.” I intoned the words and felt the mana leave my body and wrap the blood-smeared torch I had lit with my flint striker. The directions I found attached to the torch had made it clear that without lighting the oil-doused wood first I would summon either a creature of wood if my skill were low, or a creature of muck and oil if my skills were high and conditions favorable. I wanted fire, needed fire.

My mind was filled with a vision of a vast canyon spewing ash and fire into the skies above as something emerged slowly from the abyss for only a moment before my mind snapped back to the moment and I sensed that somehow something had intervened in the vision on my behalf.

Odd.

My thoughts stuck on that for only a moment before I stepped back as my elemental took shape.

It was, predictably, a salamander of fire. It stretched to nearly six feet if you included the tail. It had six stubby legs ending in multi-jointed feet that were tipped in short blunted, black claws. The body of my new elemental was occasionally lit by flickers of flame and puffs of visible heated air and as it looked back at me, I could see the clear hint of intelligence in its large round orbs dark coal. My new friend came complete with the standard salamander tail, though this one ended in a small flame that made my mind want to chant “char” for some reason.

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Some may say that I made my decision to summon this fire elemental underground in a water-filled environment a bad idea, but those people were probably safe and warm with ready access to dry shoes. All this was to say, I was cold, and I was going to have fire!

“Now, what to call you…” I said as I looked at my newest elemental spirit.

The creature just looked at me for a moment before rolling its eyes back, which was made even more strange as it eyes kept rolling back until I saw its iris emerge from the bottom and disappear into the top again before stopping and coming back down to look at me.

As its eyes locked onto mine, I sensed in our connection that it already had a name, or rather he had a name. Ignis.

“Okay, then. Ignis it is.” I affirmed loudly while maintaining eye contact with my new friend. I liked it and for a moment I wondered whether these beings had a similar level of access to my knowledge of earth and if he had just stolen that name from some memory of my past self. “Thoughts for future me.”

It was time to check my reserves and see what there was to see so I took a moment to call up my status sheet.

Name: Olea Munroe

Level: 13

Archetype: Shrine Maiden of the Elements

Health: 192/256

Mana: 117/316

Stamina: 243/312

Attributes:

* Strength: 14

* Dexterity: 18

* Constitution: 14

* Charisma: 19

* Intelligence: 19

* Wisdom: 24

You have Zero Attribute Points Remaining

Experience Till Next Level: 52,750 remaining of 54,000.

Skills: Six skill points remaining.

Stealth - Rank 1

* Pierce - Rank 1

* Sneak - Rank 1

Piety - Rank 4

* Armor – Rank 2

* Command – Rank 3

* Conjure Elemental Spirit – Rank 4

* Create Food – Rank 2

* Create Water – Rank 3

* Cure Wounds – Rank 2

* Detect Aura – Rank 1

* Detect Magic – Rank 4

* Dispel Magic – Rank 3

* Protection from Evil – Rank 2

* Vigor – Rank 3

* Water Breath – Rank 2

* Water Walk – Rank 3

* Wind Walk – Rank 4

Triumvir Soul Skills

* Dowsing

* Forum

* Shared Senses

* Soul Link – Rank 2

* Soul Vault

* Vessel of Souls – Rank 2

* World Map

I took a moment to re-read the archetype tag, noting that it had changed from water priestess to shrine maiden of the elements.

“Who comes up with these things?”

My mind then jumped to my mana levels as they were currently at about one third full. I had a brief moment where I realized I had wasted thirty-five mana on casting Wind Walk when it was obviously still in effect after my earlier casting. I clearly felt the spell manifest at the time I cast it, but it was as if the spell just washed over its previously established form with no benefit.

Again, I was using some vague descriptors as the feeling was somewhat lost in the moment, but it did feel close to that. I would need to invest some time in studying it after I escape. My future self was going to be busy.

“Ack!” I let out a not-at-all-girlish yelp as I was knocked over by the tail of my summoned elemental. It seems I had been rudely staring at it for an overly long amount of time. I muttered a hasty sorry even as I climbed back to my feet.

I began looking ahead down the tunnel once again and was about to start walking before I felt the bottoms of my feet growing very warm; almost uncomfortably so. Looking down I saw that Ignis had sidled up close to me and was currently resting one of his wide feet directly beside my wet shoes.

“I really like you.” I said as I looked down at my newest friend. “Warm…”

The little guy just looked up at me as the steaming vapors left my feet feeling very comfy, and I do not feel guilty in the slightest at standing there to bask in the feel of my own personal heater that felt like the summer sun.

My mind briefly shifted from the heavenly feel to more mundane problems as I tried to figure out my goals.

I had to escape, that was a given. I was tired of being cooped up down here and not having any say in my own ability to do what I wished to do at any given moment. Yes, freedom is what I desired most.

Also, revenge. I wanted to see the lady of the house suffer alongside her dog Reginald. I knew I was not on the level where I would pose a real threat to that man and his ability to just casual kill people as if prepping food for lunch.

Scratching that one away for now, I knew I needed to get back to South Jaga to fix my connection with those higher beings that gave me some extra perks, chief among them being my ability to learn skill and spells without the need for a teacher to connect to me somehow. I preferred not waiting for a chance to snag what I wanted when I wanted it.

I knew I would most likely be using my Wind Walk skill to make me way home, though I still was not sure what that looked like as I had not used the spell for much yet and I doubted I could pull off the casual proficiency that Camilla the courier had displayed above the city as she left the guild hall. The memory of her dancing and flipping through the air as she somehow built her speed and increased her momentum so quickly still left my spirit aching for a chance to try it myself.

Focus.

Right, I needed to get moving, recover my mana, and reach my escape route.

I accomplished the first by taking that first step with dryer shoes and warmer feet as I moved further along the network of tunnels and caves in this soon-to-be-left-behind domain of subterranean hell.

The second would take longer as I did remember that for every two percent of my mana lost, I would lose one percent of my total mana regeneration which would increase as I replenished it. Mana begetting more mana and all that. Don’t ask me how it worked, I just knew it did.

I also had to avoid bottoming out that mana pool as it would lock me in at half mana regeneration until fully recovered with a killer headache as a full-time reminded.

“Yeah, don’t want to do that again.” I muttered, earning me a look from Ignis along with a puff of heated air which he blew out through his little nose slits. Seeing a lizard smile while blowing heated air from their nose with their thin line of a mouth stretching from one side of its jaw to the other was rather strange in a creepy kind of way. Still cute, creepy-cute.

Ignis shook his head as if reading my thoughts before he trudged on head down and eyes forward.

As for the last bit, I figured that I would just need to make use of the limited knowledge of the skill I had obtained as I learned it mixed in with some heavy improvisation and luck. I would also need to worry about something new, as I was sure I would soon have to rely on my pool of stamina for executing the flight.

“Onward, to glorious freedom!” I exclaimed into the air as I continued my walk, startling Ignis just a bit in the process.