“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Vela asked.

Hark stood still, staring in the direction where the strange undead had disappeared. It had been over an hour now, but something was seriously wrong with the situation. No one was supposed to know they were here. Maybe killing the strange undead would’ve been for the best, consequences be damned. Something had stopped him though. He trusted strange feelings the most of all. The rest could be fabricated easily by those with the appropriate skills.

Could it be that the children’s ritual had worked? Was a devil or at the very least a messenger walking among them? If that was so, it would partly explain the feeling he got from the man. Why were the children still living then? Why were they?

“He didn’t seem to care Pearl is an inferni,” he finally said, sharing only a brief glimpse of his thoughts with his companion.

“That, or he’s an outstanding actor.”

Hark shook his head. “I have my one eye still. I can tell if someone pretends. He was confused, lost, and terrifyingly calm about it. Almost apathetic. There was something out of place. He also had no clue what talents are. Or worshippers, which is the worrying part.”

That surprised Vela. “Every child knows about talents and dreams of finding one in themselves. And the tales of the Divines…”

“I know.”

The two remained silent for a while, listening to the sound of the swamp.

“What do you think he will do?”

Hark grunted, “I don’t know what to think. He most likely won’t become food for the swamp, as much as that is in our best interest. Maybe he and Arten will find each other, and depending on how that goes… We might be looking at trouble. An undead asking if he can get drunk…” Something wasn’t right.

“I doubt their meeting will go well. We might consider hurrying things up… We need to make a choice. You know my thoughts on the matter.”

“I know.”

***

Sunday was growing frustrated. He had tried a few more things with the golden page, asking questions and listing out catchphrases. Nothing else had worked, apart from calling out ‘spells’. He had none though.

The page didn’t offer any further information on his species either.

Eventually, he gave up and forced his brain toward practical things. He had planned to find a suitable tree and climb up to scout the area, but looking at the trees around had made him reconsider. They were tall, and the intertwining branches didn’t seem like they could hold his weight. Plus, he was still too close to the village. The other idea he had was to circle the village from afar and head in the opposite direction of where they had sent him. That was the distrustful bastard in him talking.

If they were hiding from someone or something, they had every reason to want him dead. Not killing him on the spot had been strange enough already.

After another hour of wandering around, being beset by the croaking of frogs and twittering of insects on all sides, Sunday had to admit that he was truly lost. Even more than he had already been, which was quite amazing. Everything looked the same to him. The trees, and the reeds rising out from the pools of water that were everywhere, joined in a complicated shallow mess that constantly forced him to change his direction, never allowing him to go straight. There was mud everywhere.

I might end up back in the village with how things are going, but that won’t end well. Figuring things out here is impossible. Even walking in a straight line is impossible. I relied too much on being able to navigate a city. This is not even close.

Sunday stopped and squatted near a pool. He didn’t feel tired at all, which at least was a good thing. There was no sense of hunger or thirst either. However, even if he could last for days, he would succumb to the swamp’s treachery eventually. He had already gotten caught in deep mud a few times.

A spot in the water caught his attention. The pool was murky and thick, but a circle not far from him was crystal clear. As if two types of liquid were simply refusing to mix. He took a few unsure steps toward the strange sight.

The first thing he saw was his reflection. A familiar, yet changed face stared at him. He was himself, and he wasn’t. Gone were the scars he had used like armor so many times. His eyes were darker than ever and ominously red. Sunken too. His skin was gray and dead, and his hair was black and unruly. He was a far cry from the corpse he had been after waking up in a grave, but he was also much different than a human. He shook his head and paused at the sight of his slightly pointed ears. Now that was kind of cool.

After admiring himself for a time he finally focused on a small shine below the clean spot of water.

All the floating dirt was forced back in a rough circle around a precious stone that gave a soft glow. It was pale blue, like the summer sky.

A strange impulse came over him and he reached into the water, letting his hand rest there. Slowly, the dried dirt started coming off and leaving the clean water, repelled to the edges of the circle. After his hand was clean, he picked up some water in his palm and hesitated for a moment, before taking a sip. It was warm and not refreshing at all. Tasteless too. All he felt was the temperature. His body completely ignored it, but his mind rejoiced.

It was the simple act of satisfying one of the basest of human needs that almost made him almost break down. He didn’t need water now. Memories and thoughts of thirst and hunger came upon him like an unwanted itch, but he shrugged them off like he had done many times before as a human. Now was not the time. Maybe the time would never come. He took a needless deep breath, out of human habit, and felt the air rush into his dead lungs.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

He reached into the water again, cherishing the sensation spreading over his skin, and picked up the glowing stone. As soon as he took it out the algae and dirt invaded the clean circle. Putting the stone back created the same repelling force. It was not instant, but it was quite fast.

The rock was more of a pebble, really, but fascinating nonetheless. He held it in his dirty and dry hand and examined it. It pushed away the mud and dirt covering the skin much slower than it had done in the water and in a much smaller radius, but eventually, there was a small clean spot on his palm. The dirt had created a border around the base of the pebble.

It was so pristine that it looked almost as if made from crystal. He exclaimed in surprise when during the closer examination something clicked in his mind, and the stone began melting into his skin.

What’s happening?

He could feel a strange connection as if there was a new muscle in his body. He flexed it and watched the dirt fall off his hand almost to the wrist. His eyes widened as thirst unlike any other started burning somewhere deep into his soul. Using the pebble in this way was draining him of something. Something very limited. He stopped immediately, but it was already too late. A wave of nausea washed over him and a sharp pain threatened to split his head.

In the next moment, Sunday found himself lying in the mud, eyes staring at the foliage above. His head was thumping, and his mind felt sluggish. It took him a few tries to move properly.

Did I faint? Did I overdo it?

He rose with a plop, separating himself from the muddy outline he had created. He was dirtier than ever, but it didn’t bother him. He had known much worse filth than some mud. With a thought, the golden page unfurled before his eyes.

“Spells,” he whispered.

Spells 1/1

Repel Dirt

So those were spells. Not quite what he had expected. It took a bit of strain but the stone appeared in his hand and the page became blank once again. Was it a bit smaller? He examined it closely. There was a small chip in it that hadn’t been there before. Are spells consumable? This can’t be right.

For the time being he put the stone into his new bag and gathered a few more. There were a couple of small pouches of herbs and a single vial inside of the bag given to him, but he left them alone. He didn’t trust the villagers. There was also a small bundle of cloth which proved to be nothing more than rags, probably meant for bandaging. He used one of them to make an improvised pouch around the stones. Maybe they could be sold even if they were common.

The golden page providing information on the spells was a great thing. That made the talent much more valuable. What he lacked the most was knowledge.

However, having only one spell slot was disappointing, but that probably had to do with his rank being zero. He was a long way from the magi in the stories and games that were slinging spells left and right.

He imagined a bunch of wizards in robes and pointy hats, running around and chasing glowing spells all over. It would be a funny thing if that’s how things worked. Just then the universe decided to get in on the joke, and a small green frog appeared on a rock near him. It gave off a soft glow.

Sunday froze.

The frog was a tiny thing, barely as large as his thumb. It sat there like a statue, unaware of the new predator in town.

Sunday left his spear on the ground and stepped carefully forward. He moved as slowly and as silently as possible, trying to avoid the squishing sound born from the union of barefoot and wet earth. A croak made him stop, but it turned out to be another, larger frog on the side. There were quite a few of those around. They had been there the whole time but he was now suddenly hyper-aware of everything. He paused each time one of them decided to call out or scurry away, spooked by his prowling.

The closer he got to the shining frog the more nervous he got. It wasn’t croaking like the rest, just sitting there, calmly staring into the nothingness.

Just a bit more. Be a good froggy spell. Come on. What was it? Would it allow him to jump high? Would it give him a long and fast tongue that could punch out in a blink? The latter was weird, but it still got him excited. It was magic after all.

Sunday’s hands were spread wide and ever so slowly coming together while he narrowed the distance between himself and the frog. All that was left was to close his palms together. Could he squish it to death by mistake? Did spells die? There was a moment of hesitation and he took a deep breath to calm his mind.

Breathing, as it turned out, was a habit that was hard to break even if one was a corpse.

The frog jumped to the side, spooked either by the breathing or the movement of the air. Sunday cursed and lunged after it, clamping his hands together. He narrowly missed and it jumped again, further away and into the grass.

He scrambled up, cursing at the mud that was swallowing his bare feet and making him scramble. Each moment the frog jumped further away and each moment he became angrier.

His body was capable of strength and speed much better than anything he had known in the strange city or the life before, but against the soft and squishy adversary in the face of the swampy terrain, it was not an advantage.

He saw it jump again, behind a nearby tree. And that was the last of it.

Taking a deep breath, he finally managed to rise from the mud, his limbs heavy with clumpy earth, and sat down on a rock. Becoming a mage was not as easy as he’d hoped. However, if one thing was sure, it was that he didn’t let failure bring him down.

If I see that frog again, I’ll just slap the hell out of it. Let’s see if spells are tough too.

He washed himself in the pool of water to the best of his ability. A brief consideration of the dirt-repelling stones passed through his mind but it would take too long, and he would be dirty again soon enough. Using them into his single spell slot worked much better but the last thing he wanted was to knock himself out again. The night was coming, and with it, came the danger of the unknown.

Do corpses need sleep? He wondered. I guess I’ll find that out soon enough.

Dripping wet, still somewhat angry, and very lost, Sunday kept treading through the swamp. He hadn’t considered the nighttime. In the city, there was always an alley, an abandoned building, or a construction site to hole up in back when he had been without a home. The billboards and lights also made the night just a differently colored part of the ever-continuing day. Life never stopped in the big city. It was easy. The only predators there had been people, and people were, for the most part, predictable. At least the ones he had grown up around.

Excluding the drug users, of course. You could always count on an addict to surprise you.

As far as the swamp went, the old chief’s warning had been to watch out for lizards. Sunday decided he was doing a pretty good job of avoiding them since he hadn’t seen a single one so far. Or maybe he was simply doing a very bad job at watching out for them. Either way, he wasn’t worried about lizards.

He found a tree that vaguely reminded him of the one from the cemetery. It was much smaller and a bit shorter than the rest covering the swamp, so he deemed it climbable. Specifically, because another had fallen into its crown, creating a sort of ramp. Soon enough he was uncomfortably resting between a few sturdy branches and chasing away a cloud of mosquitoes.

If there was only one positive to be pointed out about being undead, it was that mosquitoes left him alone.