Lily woke up to someone whistling, well; several someones. She jumped up and, for a second, she couldn’t figure out why her light, that had been anchored on the crystals, was so dim. Then everything came crashing back. She looked over towards the rock that was blocking her cave and saw soft, yellowish light coming through the cracks. It was very different from the harsh, white light of the dome. While brighter than the white light, it was much softer and, for the first time since she found herself trapped in her little hellhole, something deep inside her relaxed.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, smelling things she hadn’t smelled in ages. She smelled the pine trees just outside her cave. She could smell the grass and stuff she associated with fresh water. It was a cross between rotting vegetation and mud. It smelled like heaven. Then she sneezed, and sneezed again. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was suffering from her allergies. It had been so long since she had an attack she had forgotten she had them. She cast Heal on herself and, to her relief, her nose stopped running and the desire to sneeze faded away.
She was about to push aside the rock she had carved off the side of the cave, then stopped when she reminded herself she might still be in danger. She quickly cast her Area of sight spell then closed her eyes as she was assaulted with the sensation of all the things that were alive around her. She could feel bugs below and all around her just outside the cave. They were moving in different directions, doing what she assumed were bug things.
She could feel the grass all around her cave. To her surprise, it felt like one big organism. She could feel the pine trees and the roots that spread out deep and not so deep under the ground. She was again surprised when she realized that she had accidentally cut through a bunch of roots when she made her cave. She could feel parts of the trees dying. She also felt some living blobs in the trees. She wasn’t sure if they were birds or small animals. She could feel the pit and, while it wasn’t alive like she thought it might have been last night, it did have a few things that lived in it.
She caught the edge of the body of water and felt the things that lived on its bank. One thing she didn’t sense was anything larger than what she thought might be a bunny, which was eating grass on the edge of her spell - on the opposite side of the cave away from where the water was. As she was focusing on the bunny, something very large entered her spell’s range in the water. It came in fast and snached a blob of something living before racing back out of her spell’s range. It happened so fast that all she could describe it to herself was that it was big and fast.
Her feeling of happiness dimmed a bit, but it didn’t disappear altogether. She opened her eyes and quickly cast, Mobile barrier around herself, before she moved towards the entrance of her cave. She wiggled her way out of the cave and stopped to look around. The first thought she had was just how beautiful everything looked. The grass looked so green, the trees looked so brown. Everything looked so vivid. She looked over at the body of water and noted it really was a river. She could see what was left of a metal bridge on the far side of the river.
She stared at the bridge, getting a sense of familiarity from it. It took a second before things fell into place. It was the same, stupid drawbridge she had been trying to cross way back when the world ended. It was missing the part where she had lived. In fact, now that she was looking at the pit, which was pretty large, now that she could see it in daylight, she noted it was where the bridge would have ended on this side of the river. Looking at the shape of the pit, she noted it looked a lot like what her little hellhole would have looked like from the outside looking in.
She made herself look around her at the forest that surrounded her. If this was the same area she had been, then this place should have been filled with buildings. While this side of the bridge, if that was what she was looking at, wasn’t part of the big city, it was still pretty well built-up. Now all she saw was a bit of grassland before a neverending-looking forest. She looked back across the river, but, where there should have been skyscrapers, all she saw was a forest on the far bank.
Turning back to look at the trees, she wondered how long it would take them to grow that big. She shook her head at the thought and walked to the edge of the water. She stopped to prepare her Chain lightning spell, in case the huge fish thing came back, before she went to the edge of the river. Holding her spell, she looked both ways up and down the river. Nothing. No signs of humanity. She didn’t see any boats in the river, nor did she see any signs of houses along the river bank. What she did see was, high in the sky, a winged lizard slowly circling something downriver. She wasn’t sure how large the thing was, but it kind of looked like it was the same size as a big commercial airplane.
“Nope.” She whispered to herself and quickly backed away from the river bank. She had had the vague idea of following the river, hoping to come across someone, but she threw that plan out the window once she saw something that could be a fricken dragon flying around downstream.
She hid in the forest, just in case the dragon thing came looking for her, as she tried to think of what to do. She tried to recall the geography of the surrounding area, but it had been so long she really didn’t remember where the cities and towns were on this side of the river. She could go east. She remembered the harbor and the ocean were in that direction, but the memory of the large fish-thing in the river made her want to avoid the ocean for now.
“If things get that big in the river, just how big do things grow in the ocean now?” She asked herself, looking off in that direction. That left north as the only direction. It was also where she used to live before the world ended.
The thought of the end of the world made her freeze. Memories of demons and fires flashed across her mind. She looked around, even as she started to cast her Area of sight spell for any signs of the things, but she didn’t spot anything that could be them. That made her think of the big thing in the river. She wondered if that was a demon swimming under the water. It was certainly fast enough.
She fired her spell off upwards then waited as it started showing her things. It was mostly little animals and bugs, but even the bigger things it showed her didn’t look like a threat. She turned back to look at the river one more time before she turned and headed north. She thought about how far away she used to live. She knew if she wanted to head home she had a long way to go.
At first she fired an Area of sight spell every few minutes, but it got annoying, so she started setting off two spells directly over her head and one angled forward, in the direction she was walking. That way she had a bit of a break between casting spells. When she got hungry she ate a mushroom. She stopped once for a bathroom break, but got freaked out when a medium-size animal raced across her spell. She couldn’t see it with her eyes, but she could feel it through her spell. The next time she had to pee she peed her pants, telling herself that she could cast Heal and Repair when she stopped for the night. It was, she decided, much safer than getting killed because she had her pants around her ankles.
Her surroundings didn’t change at all as she walked north. There were no signs of any human habitation, nor were there any signs of the road that she knew used to be somewhere around where she was walking. The trees along her path didn't become more numerous or less along her path so she couldn’t tell if there had been houses or buildings in the area, once upon a time. It was like she was traveling in the past, before the Europeans discovered the Americas.
The weather was a bit cold but sunny, with very little cloud cover, as she made her way north. She used the sun to correct her path as she walked. She didn’t think that had changed since she had been trapped away. She did see some changes though, as she walked. There was a huge tree she passed in a clearing that was thrashing around like it was being blown around in a storm, except there was very little wind and the wind was nowhere near strong enough to push the tree’s limbs and branches that hard. She decided to give the tree a wide berth.
She also came across a few huge beasts as she walked. She stopped or walked around them to avoid them. After the second encounter, she summoned her grimoire and wrote a note to create a camouflage spell in the future. To her relief, none of the beasts that she came across attacked her. In fact, they seem to avoid her once they spotted her.
She stopped and created a new cave just before the sunset. She made a better door this time. At least, one that fit better. She sat just outside her cave and watched the sunset. She stayed outside until twilight ended and it was completely dark.
It reminded her of back when she was young and she was out camping. Her family would sit around the campfire after the sun had set and hang out. Well, the adults had what they called ‘tea time’, where they drank a lot of alcohol all night long. It had been fun to watch her parents and her aunt act stupid.
Thinking of her family made her sad. She knew her oldest brother was dead. She watched him die right before the dome fell right after he made it off the bridge. She wondered about her second oldest brother - the smart one. They had been in the big city for his chess tournament. It had been a grandmaster tournament and he was predicted to place in the top five. The end of the world ended the tournament well before the top five had been figured out. He hadn’t been in the city when the world ended. She had no idea where he was or if he had even survived the invasion.
She went to sleep that night thinking about them. She woke late in the night as something screamed not far from her cave. Less than a second later, a roar answered it. Lily cast her Mobile barrier spell and had both hands ready with her Greater flamethrower spells soon after. She didn’t leave her cave, but she thought better of having two flame spells at the ready. Instead, she let one spell go then cast Cut earth spell on one of her hands. Worst case, she could use it to dig her way out of the cave.
The cave shook as the two beasts fought somewhere above her. She was very glad that the spell she used to create the cave compacted the loose dirt into rock-hard walls. At one point, the two combatants passed the entrance to the cave. She could only tell because a bit of red blood spilled through the cracks in her rock door. She almost kicked out her rock to fight, but they continued on past her cave, and she let them be.
She slept in that morning, and made a late start. The day was overcast with some dark gray clouds overhead. It was also colder than it had been since she left her hellhole. She pulled her jacket closer as she walked. Since the sun was not out, she had to guess which direction was north. She was sure she wasn’t making a direct path north. She was starting to think that maybe heading towards the ocean would be a better idea than stumbling around in the middle of a forest with no idea where she was going.
The sun wasn’t quite all the way above her when her spell picked up something charging right at her. She always traveled with her Mobile barrier spell up, so it only took seconds for her to get her Greater flamethrower spell ready on both her hands. She had just enough time to turn towards the threat before she saw it. The creature looked like someone had crossed a monkey with a cat. It had long, muscular arms like a monkey, but had a head like a cat, including the ears.
She didn’t hesitate as she set off both her spells. The monkey-cat tried to dodge the spells by jumping left, but Lily adjusted her aim and hit the thing while it was still in the air. It knocked the beast backwards and set it on fire. It tried to run away, but the fire was too much for it and it died well before the fire consumed it.
It was only after the thing had died that she realized that she had set the forest on fire. The fire consumed the trees really fast, but luckily the wind was blowing away from her. She let the mana to the spell go and, to her relief, all the fires died away. Still, it left about a dozen trees burned or turned to ash. It made her realize just how dangerous her Greater flamethrower spell was. When she was trapped under the dome there was nothing but mushrooms, and whatever was attacking her. She could afford to use the spell whenever she wanted to. Now she had to remember what was behind the target when she set off her spell.
Nothing else attacked her for the rest of the day, but, when she woke up in her cave, she discovered that her world had been covered in a green-tinted mist. She felt light-headed as soon as she opened her cave. She quickly closed the cave backup and cast Heal on herself. She felt better as soon as the spell hit her. The spell was intensive and made her tired, but she kept it going as she left the cave and started walking north again. She kept the mana flowing into Heal as she walked, until the green-tinted mist faded. Then she let it go, but kept walking. She had no idea what produced that mist, but she wanted to be long gone from the area, in case it was something unique to that area or worse it was an environmental effect from a monster or demon.
She was attacked by a large flock of black birds several hours later in the afternoon, but her Greater flamethrower spell was very effective against them. They burned up well before they ever reached her or the ground. The next morning, she was attacked just after she left her cave by a dinosaur. It was about eight feet tall and maybe twelve feet long. It ran on four legs and its skin had splotches of green, black, and brown that helped make it hard to see it. As soon as she saw it, she was reminded of old war movies and how the army people dressed in the same colors.
She first felt it through her Area of sight spell. She was walking through a thick patch of forest when she felt it. She turned towards it and spotted it as it swerved around a tree. She quickly set off her fire spells as she ran to take cover from the charge behind a tree. It roared when the purple flames hit it, but it didn’t stop running at her. She had to drop both her spells just before the dinosaur hit the tree she was hiding behind. She quickly got up and turned to look at the thing.
It had some black marks where her flame spells had hit it, but the fire was already out since she had stopped funneling her mana to them. It didn’t look all that hurt as it stopped and turned towards her. Making a swift decision, she cast her Chain lightning spell on her right hand while she cast her Cut earth spell on her left.
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It was already running towards her when she finished. She set off her Chain lightning spell as it ran insanely fast towards her. The spell hit the thing and, to her relief, it stopped and fell over. Then she set off her Cut earth spell, aiming for the head. The spell hit the armored hide and stalled for a second. She added more and more mana to the spell until it finally penetrated the hide. Seconds later, the dinosaur shuddered and let out a big huff of air before going very still. She looked around for any other predators, but she didn’t spot anything with her eyes or her spells. She let go of both spells and let herself relax.
“Crystal!” She whispered to herself loudly. She resisted the urge to run over to the dead animal and instead sent an Area of sight spell over it, just to make sure it was dead. It was and she didn’t feel any other large animals around it. Only when she was sure did she run over to the dead beast.
She looked down at the carcass and bit her lip. The crystal, if the dinosaur had one, would be somewhere near the heart. The problem was beasts were weird. Their heart was not always in their chest. She sighed as she pulled out her makeshift knife.
“Now, where is your heart?” She asked the dead animal.
Fifteen minutes later she stood up, completely naked. Both her arms were covered in blood and other things she didn’t want to think about. She also had tracks of blood on her forehead and stomach where she had somehow touched herself with her bloody hands. She shook her arms, annoyed. She had found the heart deep in the beast’s intestines. She did not find a crystal though. Cursing to herself, she cast Cleanse on herself, and watched the blood and guts of the animal turn to dust. She quickly got dressed again, and left the dead animal to the much smaller circling animals. They ignored her, so she ignored them. She wished the bigger animals would ignore her as she popped a mushroom in her mouth.
She slept fitfully that night. She felt like something was watching her. She was not sure if it was her imagination or not, but she kept getting up in the night to take a look around her cave. She didn’t find anyone. She got up sometime in the early morning, too bothered to sleep anymore. It was well before the sun was due to rise when she fired off yet another Area of sight spell. She had been firing them off randomly hoping to catch whatever was out there roaming around. Yet nothing appeared in the thirty-foot diameter of her spell once more. She was not sure if there was something out there hiding just beyond the edges of her spell, or if it was her imagination. Either way, she stayed awake for the rest of the early morning, and waited for the sun to rise.
She still felt like someone was watching her as she left her cave that morning. She looked around, but nothing stood out. Tired but vigilant, she started her journey again. The feeling got stronger and stronger throughout the day, and, just past noon, she heard a weird growling noise. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Her Mobile barrier was already in place, so she cast a Greater flamethrower spell on one hand and a Cut earth spell on the other. The growling noise got louder and louder and then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Lily took cover behind a tree, looked in the direction the noise had come from and waited for the attack.
To her complete surprise, a voice called out to her. “Hello? My name is Colonel Richardson. The System led us to you. We are here to help. We can take you back to our fort, if you like.” While it was easy for her to understand him, he had a funny accent. It wasn’t like the normal Bostonian accent she remembered from long ago. It was close, but it was still oddly different.
Lily didn’t move or say anything, too surprised to respond.
“We won’t force you to come with us, but this is a really dangerous valley. I’m not sure where you came from, but we are way too close to Boston for anyone to be safe. If you don’t want to come with us, that’s fine, but you need to head north as fast as possible. We’re pretty sure there is a demon’s nest somewhere nearby.” The colonel called out to her.
“Wait!” Lily said, finally finding her voice. “I’m coming.”
She dropped her attack spells, but kept her Mobile barrier spell supplied with mana, just in case. She raised her arms like she was surrendering and walked towards where the sounds had come from. She pushed past a bush and found herself standing in front of four huge, military trucks. They had stopped in a circle about twenty feet from where Lily now stood. She felt very intimidated by them. All the trucks had big, enclosed guns on them except the second truck, which had a guy with the upper half of his body sticking out of the armored turret. She did note that none of the guns were facing her, but she was sure that if she made any wrong moves it wouldn’t take them long to turn towards her.
“Hello.” The man who was standing half out of the turret said, with a smile.
“Hi.” She replied, not sure how to proceed.
“You alone?” He asked her. “You can lower your hands. We’re friendly, as long as you are.”
“Thanks.” She replied, feeling deeply uncomfortable. “Yes, I’m alone.”
“Well, come on in.” The Colonel said, waving at her. “I wasn’t kidding about how dangerous this area is. We’ll get you settled and, if you want, get you access to the System hub.”
“Okay.” She told him, as a door in the back of the truck he was standing in opened. She gave the man a nervous look as she jogged towards the back of his truck. She also noted that he talked about a system or rather the System. She wondered what he meant. As she got closer to the truck, the colonel ducked back down in the turret and closed the hatch.
Lily rounded the truck and stopped when she looked inside. The truck was full of army people. She was really worried until she saw another woman. She knew that her being there didn’t mean anything, but she was still glad that she was there. One of the guys must have seen her hesitate because he held out his hand and gave her a smile.
The only way that Lily could see to enter the truck was by the ramp that they had lowered. It had steps on it so it wouldn’t be that bad. Still, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be in the back of a truck with people she didn’t know, and, as she spotted machine guns lining the side of the truck, who were armed.
“In or out. We’ve got to go.” The colonel’s voice came from deep inside the truck.
Taking a deep breath, and hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she reached up and took the army guy’s hand. His hand was surprisingly smooth and warm. He didn’t squeeze her hand as she climbed up the stairs. He just held on to her hand and let her move at her own pace without pulling at her. She felt grateful for that. He released her hand as soon as she climbed up the last step.
“Got an open seat there.” The guy said, pointing to an empty, brown seat. It was in front of the woman and behind the man who helped her into the truck. She nodded her head, afraid to say anything. The back of the truck was cramped, so she accidentally bumped into the guy who helped her up the ramp and the woman by the ramp. The woman gave her a friendly smile, but didn’t say anything. She did help Lily put her seatbelt on. The seat belt was weird, nothing like the seatbelts she remembered. For one thing the buckle was huge and went just above her belly. There were five belts that had to be attached to the buckle before it would lock.
As the woman was helping her with the seatbelt the ramp rose up and closed, leaving the back of the truck with poor lighting. It wasn’t dark, since there were windows all along the back on the sides of the truck, but it was much dimmer than she expected. There was no other lighting that she could see. She did note that there was some with mana running along either side of the middle aisle that ran down the center of the truck. She looked down at the floor and spotted symbols that almost looked like spell balls carved into the metal floor. Some of them looked worn.
“Hello again. As I said earlier, my name is Colonel Richardson. I’m the commanding officer of Fort Woburn. We mainly keep an eye on this valley and Boston.” The colonel said from a seat right in front of her. She knew he hadn’t been sitting there before, so he must have kicked the other guy out of his seat. She was still processing the information when the truck started to shake and growl. She grabbed on to her armrest in panic, making the other army people laugh.
“Knock it off.” The colonel grumbled to his troops. “Just because she might never have been in a vehicle before doesn’t mean you get to make fun of her.” Lily was too embarrassed to correct him.
“What’s your name?” He asked her.
“Lily.” she replied.
“Well, Lily, it’s been something like fifty years since the System detected someone who hasn’t activated their implants among those who are of age, and was in need of help. In fact, when I got the quest to go find you, I had to talk to my superiors to make sure that it wasn’t a mistake.” He told her.
Not knowing what to say, Lily only nodded.
“Do you mind me asking some questions?” He asked her. Still Not sure how to respond, she only nodded.
“Do you know what a Sage of Humanity is?” He asked. Lily shook her head no, taken aback at the question.
“Nothing?” He asked her.
“No. What is it?” She asked in turn.
“I have no idea. I was asking you.” He replied. “You see, the System in the past rewarded everyone for finding someone without their implants activated a hundred credits to bring them back to safety. They didn’t have to get them activated, but, for most people, it’s just too dangerous to go around without them.” He informed her.
“Now, I’m not sure if you know how much a credit’s worth, but it’s worth a lot. To put it in perspective, everyone in my command gets from one to four credits a month. The entire fort is going to get the rewards as soon as we complete the quest. Here is the odd part, though. I was just about to send my people out to find you, when we got a quest update - which happens now and again. The odd thing is that the System’s changed how it identifies you. You went from a ‘human in danger’ to a ‘Sage of Humanity in danger’. The quest reward jumped from one hundred credits to one thousand credits. That’s enough to make everyone in my command rich. Are you sure you don’t know what the System means when it calls you a Sage of Humanity?” He asked her.
Lily, too scared to answer him, shook her head no.
“Oh well, I suspect that will remain a mystery, for now.” He told her with a fake-looking smile. “I do have more questions, if you’re up to it.”
Lily nodded her head to tell him to go ahead.
“Where are you from?” He asked her.
Not sure how to answer that, Lily replied. “Malden.” It was where the drawbridge used to be.
“I’m not familiar with that enclave. Can you be more specific?” He asked her.
“North of Boston.” She replied.
“Well, that’s not very specific.” He replied, looking annoyed. “Is it just you or are there other people in Malden?”
Feeling a wave of sadness, Lily had a flashback of the end of the world. In her head, she saw the dead people who failed or died escaping Boston. It had been a long time since she had thought about that. Even though it was a very long time ago, she was surprised at the intensity of the fear and sadness that rode the memory.
“That bad, hmm.” He said, breaking her out of her memory. For a second she forgot where she was.
“That’s okay. You can stay at the fort or you can head to Lowell when the next caravan comes through.” He told her then left her to go back to the front of the truck. The man who had helped her into the truck returned to his seat.
Lily nodded her head mostly to herself, but kept her eyes on her lap, fighting to keep some very bad memories inside her head where they belonged. Instead, she did what she always did when she got like this - she started to create a new spell in her head. She decided to create that camouflage spell she had told herself she needed. Soon she lost herself as she planned the spell out. Well, not really planned so much as thought what she needed for the spell to work. She needed to figure out what she meant when she thought of camouflage. She needed to find the intent of the spell.
The camouflage couldn’t be just hiding from plain sight, since she knew for a fact that most monsters could track mana. So it had to have both a visual component and, at the same time, hide mana from escaping around her. “Does that mean that I have to create a shield that contains my mana? She asked herself. “That just seems like a recipe for disaster. I won’t be able to cast any attack spells. What about hiding it? Will that work?”
Soon, she lost herself to figuring out the spell. She was shaken out of her train of thought when the woman beside her literally shook her. “Dinner.” She told Lily, handing her a brown paper bag.
Lily accepted the bag, confused as she opened it that she didn't see any mushrooms. It only then dawned on her that they didn’t have mushrooms. That made her wonder if they only grew in her little hellhole. She reached into the bag and pulled out something she hadn’t seen since before the world ended. It was a sandwich. She smiled and sniffed it, smelling the bread. The sandwich was wrapped in some kind of weird, paper wrap that felt slick to her. She unwrapped it very carefully and took it out.
She peeked under the bread and saw a thin slice of white substance. “Cheese.” She thought, as she broke off a corner of the substance and put it in her mouth. It tasted far better than anything she had ever eaten before. She kept it in her mouth and on her tongue so she could savor it. Finally, when the flavor was fading, she swallowed it. Eager to see more, she lifted the cheese up and saw a slab of meat. It was dark black on the outside, but had a deep, red color in the middle when she ripped the meat a bit. Not sure what kind of meat it was, she kept ripping it until a piece of it came off. She did note that it came off in a long string. She wondered if it always did that or if it was because of how she tore at it. Shrugging her shoulders, she put it in her mouth.
The meat was very odd. It had an almost unpleasant oily taste to it, but had some kind of peppery flavor as well, making it taste much better. She swished the meat around her mouth a little bit, enjoying something so different to what she had been eating. Finally, she swallowed it so that she could take a bite of the whole thing. And she did.
The flavor of the bread was nearly overpowering. It was slightly stale, but Lily didn’t care. It tasted divine. Soon the bread flavor was overtaken by the cheese flavor which was quickly followed by the meat, which combined the whole together to create an entirely new flavor. She savored the taste until the bread got soggy in her mouth. Soggy bread, she learned, felt disgusting. She quickly swallowed it so she could take another bite.
The second bite was much better than the first, as the flavors grew stronger. She savored the bite for a few seconds before remembering how unpleasant the soggy bread felt. She quickly swallowed it down. Her stomach feeling almost full, she decided to take a third bite before she put the sandwich away. The third bite extended the flavor, but didn’t really add to it. Still, she enjoyed the taste, as she reluctantly rewrapped the sandwich.
“Water?” Asked a man who was sitting in the seat where the Colonel had been. He was holding out a canteen. Lily eagerly took it from him. She couldn’t remember the last time she had something to drink. Her mushrooms supplied everything she needed to live, and that included liquid.
She unscrewed the cap and took a sniff of the water, only to jerk it away from her nose. It smelled really bad. She didn’t remember water having a smell. She looked up at the guy who gave her the canteen. She noted his frown.
“It shouldn’t be that bad. I washed it out right before we left.” He said taking it back. He gave it a sniff. He pulled it back, looking confused for a second, before he lifted it to his mouth and took a sip.
“It tastes fine.” He told her, holding it back out to her. “Maybe, just don’t smell it?”
She nodded her head and took it back. She tilted the canteen back and let the water fall into her mouth, holding her breath so as not to smell it. The water felt amazing on her tongue. She quickly swallowed it and felt it fall all the way down to her stomach. It tasted slightly off, but it felt good both in her mouth and as it traveled down her throat. Overall, she would rate it much better than just eating a mushroom. She grinned back at the guy and handed it back to him.
“You know you can eat more, right?” The woman behind her asked, as Lily started to put her sandwich away.
“It’s okay.” Lily replied, as she refolded the slick paper over her sandwich. Then she put it back into the brown paper bag. “I’m full.”
She could tell that was the wrong answer, as all the army people turned to look at her. She lowered her head to hide from their attention. It made her very uncomfortable. To feel better, she started working on her camouflage spell again.