Lilith stayed behind Silene since she was the one who had control over the light. That light reminded her of Wispy, so she felt an innate sense of trust and calm seeing Silene surrounded by it. She still had a bit of a headache, but seeing those light motes somehow made it easier to deal with.
Silene sent a few of the motes forward, traveling down the cave and lighting the way ahead of them, but she didn’t move.
“Huh?” Lilith almost bumped into her, then tilted her head. “Are we not exploring?”
“I rushed in here because you were close to a heat stroke,” Silene said. “But it’s not a good idea to enter a cave without knowing what’s inside it.” She squinted down the cave. “It looks like there’s nothing down there though. Well, no animals at least.”
Lilith smiled, then paused. “Wouldn’t your light have woken them up if there were?” She asked.
Silene shrugged as she walked from the pool to the edge of the river where magicite had deposited. “Well, at least we’d have a head start.” She knelt down and moved a mote of light near a few plants growing with their roots throughout the magicite. “Healheart fungus.” She plucked a mushroom up from the magicite. “And grey riverflower” She moved her mote to a vine with a few grey flower buds. “The fact that they’re growing on magicite means they’re magic variants. Probably something the miners made and left behind.”
“Cool.” Lilith stared at the grey mushroom that had a white heart on its cap.
Silene frowned as she noticed some of the leaves of the riverflower were rustling, then put her hand near them. “Wind, more than what the river could make. So someone made a riverflower capable of aerokinesis? But the river in here should carry in all the air they’d need.”
Lilith tilted her head.
Silene shrugged and got up, then turned to Lilith. “You still have a headache, right?”
Lilith nodded.
“Eat this.” Silene held the mushroom out.
Lilith grabbed the mushroom and ate it, then grimaced at the bitterness. “Eugh.”
“That should help you heal a bit faster, especially since it’s probably a bio magic variant,” Silene said.
Lilith scanned over her stomach with her mana sense, but the mushroom wasn’t doing anything magical. Of course it wasn’t though, that’d be light cutting off someone’s hair or nails and expecting that to cast magic. So, she walked forward to the river near the magicite and scanned the mushrooms with her mana sense. And sure enough, the mushrooms were taking energy from the magicite and using it for their own magic in their roots and caps. “Yep, probably bio magic.”
“If we had a way of drying them, they could sell for a decent price,” Silene said. “But it’s a bit too moist in here for that.” She stepped forward. “Well, I guess you want to see the rest of the cave now, right?”
“Of course!” Lilith hopped up and moved over beside Silene, then looked at the cave around her and its different shades of brown. “If you know about the plants, do you know about the different types of rocks too?” She asked, hoping she did. During some of her electronics lessons, Wispy admitted he didn’t know where to get some of the materials from, but he did say that they could be mined.
Silene shook her head as they walked. “I only know a few rocks that are good for grinding up and using for plant soil: like potash, lime, and phosphorite.” She looked around. “There might be some phosphorite here, but it looks like a lot of other rocks.”
Lilith looked over at a small hole along the wall. “Ooh, what’s down there?”
Silene sent a light mote down into it. Past the small entrance, there was a large open area. “I could use my earth magic to make the opening wider, but I think we should stick to the river for now.”
Lilith nodded and looked at the river. “Oh, I think there are some openings under the water too!” She peered.
Silene sent a mote down one of the opening’s Lilith was talking about. It just kept going down and down until they lost sight of it. “That one goes pretty far. Too bad it’s underwater.”
Lilith remembered Wispy’s old scuba story. “I wonder… I think I could make something so we could explore it.”
“Really?” Silene turned. “How?”
“Uh.” Lilith paused to figure out how to describe it. “Well, just carry a tank of air with you like a backpack and use that to breathe.”
Silene stared at Lilith for a moment, then turned back to the river. “I don’t think that would be enough for a long trip, but I guess you could go for a bit longer that way.” She looked around again, moving some of her motes to another hole in the cave wall. “I think we’ve got a lot to explore before we head underwater anyway though.”
“Mhmm.” Lilith followed along. The water here had calmed down a lot, but there were still several more holes in the ground, wall, ceiling, and river. So many places to explore later. For now, she was content walking along the seemingly endless river, until she saw a wooden bridge up ahead. It made sense that it was easier to build here since the river was much smaller and calmer. She ran up, ready to test it out, Silene following.
Lilith set up her flight magic just in case, then hopped on the bridge a few times, lowering her magic until she was hopping on it normally. It held both their weight and only creaked a little. But even if it broke, Lilith was sure she could handle the slight flow of water below it, but it was nice to know it was still working.
Satisfied, she continued following the river, noting the other holes in the cave, until the river finally ended in a large, calm pool at the end, with healheart, riverflower, and magicite lining the edge of it. A few tiny insects occasionally blinked with light above it.
Silene sent a few motes of light over the pool, and they both saw that the river continued underground. It was large enough to comfortably swim in, though getting back would mean swimming against the current.
Curious, Silene sent a few of her motes of light to go into the underground river. It continued until there was a bend they couldn’t see past. Then, she turned back to Lilith. “So, that’s the cave.”
“It’s mine,” Lilith said.
“I take it you like it.” Silene smiled.
Lilith nodded. “I think I’ll put a watermill near the entrance and a place to store all my stuff. We can explore some more later, and maybe I could use the magicite for something!”
“Maybe?” Silene raised an eyebrow. “You can use it for runes, powering your magic, pretty much every magicite device, and you could even live off of it for a while like the plants here do. There are stories of people living off of dirt and magicite.”
“Sounds… miserable.” Lilith frowned and started walking back. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“They probably wouldn’t by choice,” Silene said, then rushed forward and grabbed Lilith. “Careful! Watch out for that pitfall.”
“Oh, thanks.” Lilith stared down. “Hmm. I think I’d start my flight magic once I fell, but maybe I should practice that.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Silene said. “Or just put something over it.”
Lilith looked around. There was the bridge up ahead and a few stalagmites, but she didn’t want to tear apart the cave, so she left it. “I’ll cover it once I come with some more materials,” she said.
…
Eventually, they made their way back to the mouth of the cave, but it was dark out by then. The stars looked like one long cloud in the sky, and the moon was only a slight blue-green sliver. But the ground away from Silene’s light motes was pitch black.
Luckily, Lilith’s backpack and wings were still by the river, so Lilith rushed out and carried them back in. “Whew! I’m glad some animal didn’t carry these off.” She opened her backpack and dumped out a few metal plates onto the cave floor. Then, she smirked. She had a great idea.
Lilith arranged the metal plates into a small group of tiles before standing on them. “Behold! My secret laboratory!” She threw her shoulders back and cackled. “Mwahahaha haa!”
Silene smiled and shook her head, laughing slightly, then shrugged and clapped. “Your secret lab is magnificent, Dr. Lilith.”
Lilith smiled a bit more, then stepped off the plates. “So, are we ready to fly back?”
Silene shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to fly back at night when we’re both tired. It’s better we rest here where we know there are no animals than risk passing out in the middle of the forest.”
“That makes sense,” Lilith said. “Speaking of animals, I’m glad there were no dragons or anything waiting for us in the adit.”
“Mhmm.” Silene nodded. “So, did you bring any blankets?”
Lilith shook her head. “I wasn’t planning on staying overnight.”
Silene sighed, then sent some more light motes out, letting them drift along the river, rock faces, and cliff above. She was looking for something to cover them, maybe some large leaves or some large logs, anything really. However, this place was mostly rocks. As her motes flew out, she did find a silk tree with its trunk covered with fine white hairs growing on the side of a cliff, but it was wild, so it would be filled with bugs.
She frowned. “I guess your backpack and wings are the best blanket we’ve got.”
Lilith smiled. “I guess I did bring a blanket.”
---
This time when Lilith found herself by Wispy’s lake, she saw him glaring down at her and shrank back. Why did he seem so angry?
“Do you realize how many times you almost died?” Wispy asked.
“Uh, I almost fell down a hole,” Lilith said. “But Silene saved me.”
“That’s one,” Wispy said. “Any more?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Lilith thought back throughout her day, then shrugged.
Wispy pulsed red, then he smoothed it out to purple, and finally turned back to his regular light blue, with a few specks of red. “I’ll list them for you then,” he said. “You exhausted yourself flying to the top of your school and barely managed to land. Then you barely avoided crashing into the next roof, and then the church. You just got enough lift to fly over the trees and not get skewered by a branch. Silene kept you from breaking your legs and being stuck in the forest. You luckily didn’t come across a dragon. Silene saved you from heat exhaustion, a potential seizure, and potential permanent brain damage. The cave just happened to have air you could breathe and a plant and river that carried it in. It also happened to only have a few bugs in it instead of any larger animals. You misjudged how fast the water was going under the bridge. And then Silene saved you from falling down a hole and slamming your head against a rock!” He extended his tendrils out into different images, all showing the countless ways Lilith could’ve died. “And no animal has come to eat you while you were sleeping since you didn’t set up a watch.”
Lilith paled at the images. “It’s not that bad, is it?”
“It is,” Wispy said.
“But wait, why weren’t you against us going earlier?” Lilith asked.
Wispy seemed to sigh. “I thought I’d taught you those things, and you’ve outgrown your dorm and needed a place to grow. Silene also stood the best chance of dealing with any disaster, even dragons.” A few of the ends of his tendrils pulsed reddish brown. “But you both could’ve done better.”
Then, a scuba tank, a bundle of rope, and Lilith’s wings floated in from the lake shore.
“Whenever you’re in a cave with pitfalls, always keep a rope tied to your partner.” He showed an image of Lilith and Silene tied together. This time, Silene was looking the other way while Lilith fell into the hole and knocked her head, but the rope caught her. Silene was tugged and fell over, but caught the rope and pulled the image-Lilith back up. Then, she knelt beside her and healed her head injury with her bio magic. “If you do manage to react in time, activate your time magic as well as your levitation so you can dodge and block if you need to.”
Lilith nodded.
“Your wings are still inefficient, but the materials you need to fix this are back home, so you’ll have to deal with it for now.”
Lilith nodded again.
“And if you ever decide to enter a cave without a river or a magic vine, you should either have some way to tell that the air is safe, or not risk it at all.” He pointed a tendril to the scuba tank, which now had a colorful bird standing on it. “Miners used a method called a ‘canary in the coalmine’. They waited for the bird to die to tell them the air was unsafe. But even then, your lungs could be permanently scarred before you realized or the air could have low oxygen, making you too delirious to make good decisions”
Lilith nodded.
“The only thing I haven’t figured out for the scuba gear is rubber,” Wispy said. “Leather could work, but it would be harder to shape. You’ll have to ask Silene if there are any plants with sap that hardens into a leather-like, bouncy substance.”
Lilith nodded some more. “Wait, you haven’t figured out another thing?”
“I haven’t.” Suddenly, holes appeared in the ground around her, and a humanoid made of light stepped out of the lake, attached to Wispy by a tendril, who picked up the rope. “Now, you’re going to practice not dying.” Wispy and the humanoid said in unison.
“I— I’m sorry,” Lilith said, her fox ears folded down. She felt scared that this training could hurt, but also guilty that she made Wispy angry because he feared for her life, apparently so much that he was at least partially leaving his lake.
“You’ll be more sorry if you lose an arm or a leg,” Wispy and the humanoid said, and then the humanoid handed one end of the rope to her. “Be glad you can learn this without paying that price. And don’t worry, nothing in here will hurt you, though you might see a few bright flashes.”
Lilith nodded and started tying the rope around herself.
---
A woman with brown hair, a cheap hat, and a lack of human ears if one looked closely, held binoculars and looked out the window of a wooden house towards the forest where Lilith flew off to the mountains with her friend.
She’d cringed and clutched at her heart earlier when Lilith nearly fell into the rooftops or smacked into different buildings, but now she was wondering when she’d come back. Night had fallen long ago, and her husband was resting on a bed beside her with his smithy apron still on. She was wondering when Lilith would come back, and fearing something out there was the reason why she wouldn’t. Occasionally, she’d turn her binoculars to Lilith’s school. Wouldn’t one of the mages fly out after her? Did they not care if she got hurt?
This time, when she glanced over, she did see someone. A shady looking man in a dark suit and coat walked into the school. She’d seen that man before, and she did not like the way he snuck around at night.
She debated looking off to the horizon for Lilith some more, but that guy was there the first night of Lilith’s school, when she didn’t come back from her class for a week.
With a breath in and out to steel herself, she opened the window and jumped out, making sure to throw the window panes back so it would shut itself behind her, then landed with a roll. A few of the knights in full armor were still wandering around, so she ran over to a nearby house and scrambled to its roof where they couldn’t follow with all their heavy armor. Then, she ran over the roofs towards the school.
It was only a few minutes before she was at the school doors. They’d chosen their apartment because it was close after all. And when she pushed the door open, there was no one at the front desk. Perfect.
She looked at some of the papers for Lilith’s name, until she found one with her door number next to it. “307,” she whispered, before running into the hall and upstairs as quietly as possible.
She ran up one flight of stairs, then another, then looked around at the number ranges listed near the halls until she saw a range that included 307, and ran down that hall.
There, she saw that shady man walking back from Lilith’s dorm. She glared.
The man paused.
The woman walked up to him, glaring, hand at a knife on her side. She felt an intense headache build up as she walked forward, but she ignored it. Probably some more weird magic, which made him even sketchier. But even if he could tear an arm off with it, she wouldn’t hesitate to slit his throat before he could do anything else.
The man pulled out a silver badge with a sun on it. “Stop! I’m here by the king’s will.” He said quietly.
The woman still glared at him, but stopped her approach. “Why are you by my daughter’s dorm?”
“You must be Lilith’s mother then,” he said.
She continued glaring back.
“I’m a dream mage. I assume you know something about her dreams?”
“I know she improved her magic by sleeping,” the woman said.
“No one improves their magic by sleeping,” the man said. “Someone or something had to teach her. I saw what it was.”
The woman calmed down a bit. She wanted to know what this guy was doing and was finally starting to get an answer, even if it was strange. She did remember Lilith constantly telling her about an imaginary friend a long time ago. But if she still saw that imaginary friend, that was news to her. “What did it look like?”
“A great mess of blue tendrils over a lake,” the man said. “It came out of her and scared one of my assistants too.”
The woman’s eyes widened a bit when he described the strange imaginary friend perfectly, then even more when he said it ‘came out’. She thought for a bit, then frowned. “Is there something wrong with my daughter? Is it some kind of magical parasite?”
The man shook his head. “No. On the contrary, whatever it is seems to have a lot to teach us.” Then, he walked ahead. “You’re her mother, so you should have more motivation to figure out what’s going on than anyone on my team, and you should know some things we don’t. I can vouch for you to get a clearance so you can help me study that thing.” He paused. “By the way, would you happen to know why she’s not in her dorm?”
“She flew off to the mountains with a friend,” the woman said.
“I see,” the man said. “Eager to try out her flight magic then. Maybe a bit too eager.”
“I’m glad she’s having fun,” the woman said. “I just hope she comes back safely.”
“A couple of mages at her level would make a strong group. They should be safe as long as they’re careful.”
“I hope so.” The woman said, then walked back. “...I might take you up on your offer if it helps Lilith.”
“I’ll need a name to vouch for.”
“Lilac Smit,” the woman said. “But I go by Lavender here.”
“Dr. Crowe,” the man replied.
---
Lilac made her way back to her apartment and was still staring off into the sunset as the sun rose, and then still staring out the window when she was back in her room. She held her breath when she saw a speck over the horizon, then laughed in relief when she saw Lilith carrying her friend back. She smiled as she watched Lilith fly over the rooftops with much more room this time, until she landed by her school. Finally, she could take off the binoculars and let her heart rest.
William Smit yawned and stretched before sitting up beside her and looking over. “Did you sleep at all?”
“No,” she laughed. “Lilith only came back this morning.”
William’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s been out for that long? She just randomly decided to go overnight camping?”
“Apparently,” Lilac said.
William sighed. “Man, Lilith doesn’t hold back. At least she didn’t burn anything down this time, like the school.” He paused. ”I think we should try and learn magic like her so we can follow her. Everyone here says it’s something you train, not something you’re born with, and we should have enough money for a book.”
“Go for it,” Lilac said. “Then we could both fly after her.” She smiled at the thought.
“Well, I’ll have to practice it at work,” William said, moving over to a closet. “I’ll leave the book at home though.”
Lilac nodded, then went over to the bed. “You do that. I’m going to catch up on my sleep. When I wake up, I’m gonna see my daughter.”
William looked back. “There’s still a chance one of the beastmen will recognize you and report you to the guards”
“I’ll take that risk,” Lilac said. “I’m going to see Lilith.”
---
While she slept, Lilith, Malena, and the others ate breakfast in the cafeteria. However, Malena was focusing on a particularly small mushroom, trying to teleport it.
Hana turned and watched her.
‘Hey,’ Malena heard a voice in her head. ‘I can show you what I remember Chance doing.’ She looked up at Hana and tilted her head.
Hana nodded. ‘Do you want to see it?’
Malena nodded back. ‘Uh, yeah. Can you hear me?’
‘I can.’ Then, Malena saw an old memory of Chance walking around before stopping. But she saw it from Hana’s perspective, and felt his thoughts and feelings. She felt an intense sense of wanderlust, then saw images of where he was thinking of in his mind along with a strong desire to be there, and then an understanding that he would be there soon. And then finally, he was gone.
Hana panted slightly, but tried to hide the effort that it had taken.
Malena glanced at her tiny mushroom. She tried to feel the same thing Chance did, but as if the tiny mushroom was feeling it, and then as if it was desiring to be resting on her plate instead of on her fork. She felt something pulling out of her almost painfully for a moment, and then, the mushroom wasn’t there any more. She wobbled a bit, unsteady from the energy it took out of her, but she had finally teleported something! She grinned, then stabbed the escaped mushroom and took a bite. Success tasted savory.
“So, school’s starting soon,” Lilith spoke up. “I think strategy, adventure, and flight classes were going to practice something together, like a 'capture the flag' game. What are you gonna do for it?”
“Win.” Malena smirked.
---
A messenger ran into Voldis’ throne. “King Voldis. We need approval for a shipment of one ton of magicite to Solis.”
King Voldis stared down. “Denied.”
“Huh?” The man did a double take.
“I said Denied,” the king repeated.
“But, why?” The man looked at the king like he’d grown a second head. “I didn’t even give you the full request.”
“Fine. Tell me the full request,” the king coughed, then rested his head on his fist.
The man read over a paper. “It’s to help Solis replace their magic with our runes. They shut down their mines, so this would help with demand. The commander says it will pacify the populus as well as help Solis stand on its own if we need to leave.”
The king nodded. “Again, denied.”
“Can you give me a reason to write down for the denial?” The man asked
The king glared. “I’ve already repeated myself three times. I don’t need to give you a reason. Now get out of my throne before I call someone to throw you out.”
The man hesitated, then knelt. “Y— yes, your highness.” He got up and walked out.
King Voldis shook his head. How ridiculous. He wasn’t going to give a whole ton of magicite to a supposed ‘ally’ that might turn and use it against them. It wasn’t a serious request, so it didn’t need a serious response.