I start the morning like the others, I groom, and stretch. That, because I can, I add the techniques I can into it. Because why not? If you can get practice in while you comb your hair or can stretch as practice, why not add it. When I went downstairs, it was not long before Anna joined in for breakfast.

It started as a rather normal day today. Except that as Anna wakes up and eats, she seems to remember something, and starts to get giddy.

I eye my suddenly suspiciously saccharine host, “Big happy?” I asked her.

She meets my eyes, seems to think for a moment and then just smiles. I like the big bright grin that splits her face, I could feel it push the malaise of waking up away.

She doesn’t tell me what has her spirits up, I just accept it, “ok, keep your secrets.”

Anna decides to paint until the fog dissipates and I decide to watch. She draws the paint over a sketch on the canvas. It’s a painting of fruit and flowers. It seems flat right now, it takes me a little to find the right way to describe it, but there are no signs of light, or depth. Only flat colour on flat colour. The colour’s are quite well picked, at least, I think. I’m not an [Artist of Renown] or anything but they are lifelike.

It’s almost like she can take them out of her garden, I have to wonder how she gets the pigments to stay though. It’s not like you can just wring the colour out like water from a towel. Maybe it’s a skill of some sort, like a [Herbalist].

I watch, contently as she covers the rough work of her sketch until the light passes through the bared shutters, and it’s time to go to work. And she gets up and leaves. The paint dries and I finish the chores.

I take out the pots, fill the keg, put everything in its place and head out to the garden.

I go about my work, I decide to scythe again, The grass clumps from the morning dew on its blades, but I still burn through it like a wildfire. I rake it all together and get to hoeing.

When I got Anna to teach me about tools, I was surprised. The rules for writing them out are quite bizarre. I would assume, much like most things, it would follow the normal rules of e becomes ing, but the confusing language that grew from the corpse of my own, seems to have taken the rules and decided they were more guidelines. Scything is correct like I would assume, but hoing is not.

What a strange thing language is, morphing like a slime I bet as much as Skipseo would have an aneurism he would love it. Kindly would like Anna I bet, he was all about hospitality. I guess considering Hearth and him are siblings it makes sense. I hope they went gently.

I breathe deeply. Not to draw in mana, but to bring my head out of my ass and get back to work.

Man, Kindly would be pleased as punch to know I’m picking up magic.

I move on to hoeing, it doesn’t take long, I mix in the tiny growths that break through the ground, fueled by the magic of the grove. I mix the cut grass in with the weeds, I have a feeling it’s going to rain later, the way the air feels thick above. I’m sure the plants will enjoy the fertilizer it pulls from the grass.

I pluck the tiny bugs off some of the plants, specks smashed from their homes by the hand of a giant.

I check for mildew, but for whatever reason there is none.

With how much growth there is, you would think that mildew would bloom with it. I guess the grove clears the air, its certainly cleaner in feel than outside.

I water the ground a little, the water packing down the dirt and weeds and grass. The soil here drains well, and I decided to use it as practice for visualization, mirroring its speed.

In no time at all, or about an hour and half, my work is done. My chores finished; I started to think on the best way to cast my spell. What would make the easiest way to cast it?

Presumably I would not want to be interrupted, need more mana than just practicing, and time.

I need to move so I need an open space, and while it would likely be easier to do inside because there would be less to accommodate current wise, I also don’t want to do something like pull mana out of Anna’s house.

For all I know her paintings are kept vivid using magic, or her books are kept undamaged with it. If I go sucking up the mana in her house, I might damage her stuff. She might have an enchanted keeps sake.

As a guest, under guest right, it would be borderline sacrilegious after swearing I would be a good guest to Hospitality. That means that I can do it in the garden, I might mess up a flower or a potato plant, but they pull mana into them self’s, it would be temporary.

I already cut the grass down, so I am not going to get covered in dew. I should limber up a bit, make sure I’m flexible.

I get to it, legs and arms, head, shoulders, knees and toes. Fingers for gestures. Back and front. I even do giant breaths, holding it in and letting it out.

When I finish my warmup I feel ready. I reached out to talk to the land.

“Land can I ask for some help?”

Yes.

“You control Annabeth’s grove, right?”

No.

I took me a moment, but I corrected myself. The land could be picky with words, it was not a person but a force of nature, and I had asked it the wrong thing.

“Sorry, I mean, you are the grove, right?”

Yes.

“Would you be willing to move some mana into the grove for me to cast my first spell? I would also like it quiet; can you block out the noise so I can focus without distraction?”

Yes, can help. Quiet.

“Thank you.”

I watched and waited. There was a tingle in the air, and all the tiny noises that surrounded life simply drained away. The noises of the wind through the trees, the far away noises that could be anything, the sound of the critters raising their pups, vanished.

And with it, the land that had done it. The sensations from the land that I passively felt too flowed away bringing the feeling of welcome home the grove had fed me while I had been here. The sudden lack of feeling was startling, distracting even, which was somewhat backwards to what I had intended. The feeling of the land and air diminished when it left, but it did not leave entirely, I could still feel it, it was just distant.

Through that feeling I could feel the land swell. It too was strange, it brought with it a feeling of zinging static. The air felt distantly thick like fog, the dirt a density to it, and the plants a vividity. The colours started to glow as the mana flooded in and filled the space like a cup, before reaching capacity and flowing out like water. It was so thick I could feel it, even without the techniques. As it reaches capacity the plants, the dirt, the walls of the cottage and the air starts to emit something that appears like a glow. It saturates the world like the phantasmal lights of visualization except they Feel real.

I blinked, and I would not have known it if I had not felt my eyelids close, the glow not caring I had my eyes closed. The alien feeling of it creeps me out.

I push the feeling out of my mind and begin to practice and acclimate to it. My gestures and the stretching require a little more energy, more oomph to work right. I barely have to visualize or differentiate the glow and its movements, doing almost all of the work for me. I do it anyways and align the glow to my prior work. Breathing in and the movements I do bring in exorbitant amounts of energy, and I have to limit them, slow my breathing and making my movements more flowy. The skill shards are still in the right shape, despite my modifications. I slip into meditation and center the spell that I channel on myself. It’s so thick it feels like scooping clay.

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I do it again and again, feeling out the shards, then the spell, then the shards again. Examining each part, trying to make sure it’s as perfect as I can make it. I do it until I can feel myself sweating and my eyes start to sting. I think it might just be the best work I have made, each part smooth. I bring the shards close and feel it fit together like it was made for it, nearly imperceptible where they join together.

I feel ready, so I remember the way I had done it, and let it go.

Man, I am thirsty, Ill wipe myself off, and have a drink.

I take the time to walk inside and get myself ready, wiping myself off and drinking I relax for a while.

Despite that inside I am all nerves and jitters, and it drowns out the uneasy feeling from the grove.

What will the spell be? Is it going to be a combat spell? Something to defend myself? What spell would someone that was learning magic pick? What spell would a teacher give to a student I wonder.

I wonder what the skill is, it feels monolithic, but if every mage had the ability to just do something crazy like turn monsters to dust at a glance or whatever. But it’s something important. Occult stuff probably is something foundational and necessary. Something precious to being a mage.

The feeling of unease remains, the quiet of the land like ants nipping at me. When I can’t keep myself occupied with baseless speculation on the nature of this ritual. I take a deep breath and ground myself. I keep breathing until my jitters pass and I become ready to proceed.

I stand up and walk my ass out into the grove.

It’s time to go, time to cast.

I walk out past the porch, down the stairs, and out into the grass in from of the cabin and start.

I start slowly, like before. Carving my channels in the air, sensing the currents and tracking them in my mind, drawing in the mana, merging with it via meditation, and centering the spell on myself.

I formed the shape of the spell, every inch every angle every proportion. I felt the pattern draw energy and hold its shape, drawing from me.

I felt every change in the mana, every speck. I held it in my mind, and it moved and changed, passing from light to plant to dirt. And felt the difference between them as they moved.

I drew it to myself, pulling more and more to myself, pulling it into myself. In through my mouth, it burned like alcohol, into my lungs and throughout my body. Into tiny parts of myself, pockets of energy and through me into the shards, and from the shards to my movements, and from them to the spell, and out into the world.

All of the details would have boggled my mind, but the deeper I fell into meditation the easier the detail became, until I could make every detail out, and every detail could be changed, shaped and adapted to my need.

I centered the spell on myself, then the skill. Adjusting it as the currents of energy buffeted it ever so slightly.

I block out everything and hold it. I needed to finish the skill, and cast the spell, but I needed to know something.

I feel [Natural Senses] the skill that lets me feel the sky and soil. The skill that every Kobold gets at level one, our first racial trait. And it’s the same feeling, the skill feels the mana. It’s just mana, all of it. Its just so narrow in scope it was hard to tell, the skills for composition and stones, too are all just mana senses.

That’s relieving, in a way. I was worried that it would be like when the land slammed everything into my head. I have felt mana already, I just didn’t know I was feeling it. The tapestry of light has never harmed me before. And considering how using skills seems to take mana, I have also done something similar to spell casting all my life. Well, for most of my life, I hadn't been using active skills from birth, just for years.

I hold my claws slightly out, to engage those skills, sharpening my control further.

I pull in more mana, until it starts to build up. Further and further. More and more mana. I start to speed up. The mana burns more and more, I can feel myself swell with it. Filling the containers, I make for it and flooding back out.

Faster.

Faster.

FASTER.

FASTER.

The burn loses its edge, and I loop the shards together. It all snaps into place, the container flexes and I adapt it to function as it does. It settles, but there are tiny seams in it, it’s not complete until I cast the spell off.

I can feel the strings pull and hold them firm as the spells final shape forms. Thousands of parts, thin as glass with the channels pouring the energy out and staining them.

It fills, and fills. I pass from thought to pure action.

I don’t compress the mana, I am not a mage, I don’t do anything with it. I just let it act on its own.

I feel larger than I am. I am a person, and I am mana, I am the skill and I am the spell. I am somewhere in between.

I can feel a thinness of it, being in between. Like the long road feels thin, the veil between life and death. The thin film between me and mana, it grows thinner and thinner.

The spell fills to the brim with the energy. It takes forever and a second, it takes everything and almost nothing. It takes around a tenth of myself, a tenth of what the vessel can hold. A price that is already spent. I can feel the pattern is too small, its supposed to wrap around the vessel, like a blanket. So, the vessel pulls its pattern around it, one to two, to four, to eight. The energy splitting and splitting. Until the panes surround it. Covering the fragile fleshy things container. Tethered close, hundreds of strings orienting it to the center. It is ready, it just needs to be released.

It draws on its strength, draining the last of myself needed to finish, to cut myself loose. So thin, all I need is the word. I speak it and they snap free, the channels collapse, and the mana slam out of its mold. The vessel releases me, and I am the vessel, and I am back.

The spell is cast, flooding out, rippling through my body and out in front of me to see. The skill snaps into place, and becomes a part of me, settling in before disappearing from my senses.

I fall back into the grass and stare at the sky, confused, so very blue.

No, wait, that’s not the sky, that’s right in front of me. I focus on it, as I wake up with the feeling of the word I spoke on my lips.

The word was [Status].

Name: Saphine

Race: Kobold Psychopomp

Age: 2813

Titles and Information

Stats and Growth

Innate Skills and Spells

Titles: [Saint of Death]

Level: 13

Proficiency: 1

Hit points: 49/49

Mana: 298/338

Build: 22 Balanced +1|+1

Speed: 5

Senses: 20 Accuity +1|+1

Durability: 49 Spirit +2|+1

Mind: 13 Wis +2|+1

Social: 13 Int +2|+1

[Natural Senses], [Saint of Death], [Marked by the Long Road] [True Immortality], [Magi].

[Cantrip], [Status].

Classes

Class Skills

Class spells

[Ditchdigger] Level 17

[Tool handling], [Rapid action], [Toil], [Sense stones], [Displace dirt], [Sense Composition], [Durable tools], [Timeless construct]

[Green Thumb] Level 9

[Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land]

Oh, the answer was in front of me the whole time. The prayer to the hermit. Tucked away in common knowledge.

I spoke the prayer out loud, reverently. I got it now.

“Great hermit, reveal upon me the secrets of my life, so I may, in turn, grow wise.”

The great hermit, had revealed the secret to the first mage, and from master to student. Every mage related like blood back to the first.

It was silent as I lay there in the short grass, mana flowing around me, slowly leaving the grove. I was elated and exhausted in equal measure. I noticed I could feel the mana, like when I had done the techniques. Passively flowing past me. I could feel it in my body, missing the 40 points of it I had used to cast the spell.

I sat there breathing, not a thought in my head. I don’t know how long I sat there. The spell faded. I felt somewhat boneless. I sat up after that, floppily using my jiggly muscles then resting with my arms behind me.

My legs felt loose as I looked down at the ground. And I had… I looked away from my lower body not wanting to think about it right now. Instead, I focused on trying to stand. I fell over, then again. I felt my legs barely hold my weight as I stumbled around like a newborn foal. I found my way over to the nearest wall and let it take my weight.

I stayed there, barely able to stand and hear anything. But the noise was loud for the grove, and utterly unexpected. I suppose Anna must be back.

I breathed in and turned to face her, I wondered what she’s been up to, I hoped she was having as much fun as she looked like she would this morning. I’m going to have to get the land to stop messing with the grove.

I looked towards Annabeth.

It wasn’t Annabeth.

I looked straight at a man, he had a sword on one hip, bolts on his other, and a crossbow on his back. He had brown eyes and hair. Clothed in leather armour and a cloak, all of his clothes dark browns and greens.

Huh, who is this guy, some sort of [Hunter]?

He took me in, and a tension overcame him, pulling the crossbow off his back, he yelled out, though no one would hear him in the grove.

I couldn’t understand the word, but I suppose I didn’t need to. I was looking him in the eye, with my eyes open.

“uh,” I said while raising my hands.

They didn’t get far; I fell down with a crossbow bolt through my chest.