Chapter 3: Picking Apples
Hiro stood at the edge of the cavern and turned her mind to what other concepts she could pair with it to complement or hide her first magical power. "Button, is there anything that makes you faster?" If she could say her ability to freeze time was just her speeding up, it might take the heat off her ability to freeze time.
"Yes Miss Skylark, there are several that can make you faster. The essences of speed, wing, swiftness, air, and movement are ones often giving speed-based abilities. The oddest ones I have records of are light and sound. They often give light or sonic abilities, but in 2 cases they've given speed instead." Button explained.
"Light?" Hiro looked around excitedly. She didn't care about speed anymore, if she could do fun things with light she'd be happy. She had spent some time as a photographer after high school, and setting up good lighting for a shoot was one of her favorite things to do. Apart from her hobby of outdoor photography when she went hiking, she hadn't done much with it since.
"The light essence would be near one of the shafts letting in light. However, I wish to encourage you to find the essence calling to you. You will get the best and most powerful essences of magic for you that way." Button told her.
"I'll just check it out, and if it's not for me that's fine," she told the crystal behind her right ear. She began to wander back to the center of the cavern that had beams of light coming through the cracks in the ceiling. Several orbs called to her, but none as strong as Time had.
"Is it usual to have a lot of these magical orbs call to you Button?" she asked her companion.
"Rare, but not excessively so. Many of the Spark families have family affinities that direct what types of magical essence they are drawn to, but fresh sparklines like you often have more open potential," Button informed her.
She had drawn close to the biggest light beam in the cavern. She felt a draw to one of the five pedestals within its pool of light. The ground was covered with moss and ferns. The walk to it was soft under her bare feet. She had been walking with one arm wrapped around her for comfort more than modesty and the other providing balance. She paused before the centermost pedestal. It's call to her strong, but not as much as the Time orb had been. She wrapped her second arm around her torso as she stopped.
"Which one is this?' She asked.
"This is the essence of light according to the carvings." Button told her in its cheerful voice. She absently wondered why her dream self wanted something so darn cheerful speaking directly into her brain all the time.
"Button, could you say 'Hey Listen' for me real fast."
Sure Miss Skylark," Button paused before saying "Hey Listen!"
Hiro smirked, it was precisely what she had hoped for. "If you have something you want to tell me unprompted, just say that first for me will you?"
"Of course Miss Skylark, though I am programmed to answer questions, and give advice only when I feel like you might be in danger, so that might not happen very often," it told her.
"Even better," she said. She didn't know how often it would be said, but it would be funny to have it happen in her dream at all.
She still stood before the orb that seemed to glow brighter than all the others. It swirled with white light with the edges refracting into rainbows. She considered it for some time as it pulled something inside her like a magnet, encouraging her to reach out and accept it. Whatever power it gave to her it would probably be cool, but what if it just made her glow all the time? That would be dumb. Well, it was just a dream, so why worry too much about it? She held her fingers up to make a rectangle in front of her face and framed the orb light as a camera view.
"Click," she said softly, committing the view to memory. Before reaching out to pluck the floating orb, like an apple from a branch.
The air around her exploded in light as the orb glowed like a sun in her hand. She squinted but it wasn't enough, the light forced her eyes closed. She could see the orb through her eyelids. A bright circle in her vision. She felt the warmth of the light it made as it seeped into her hand and the light through her eyelids dimmed to a manageable level.
She opened them squinting before realizing the light had not gotten dimmer, but she was able to take the view of the light anyway as it absorbed. Her hand glowed in radiance as the power of light fused with her body. Her body went rigid as it poured into her. Light burst forth from her skin as it flooded her senses and body, humming with power. A set of glowing white armor formed around her, followed by a glowing white sword in her hand. Her vision adjusted and she looked around eyes landing on one of the other pedestals right outside of the pool of direct light coming in from the ceiling. Suddenly, with a flash, she was next to it. Abruptly the armor and sword dissipated in twin flashes.
She swayed, and her body realized she had moved in a way it was unused to. She threw up all over the pedestal in front of her, spattering the orb.
"Hey! Listen!" Button broke in, "It's common for the first time you absorb a concept for it to run through the base powers you gain when it combines with your spark. I notice you are now next to the wood pedestal instead of the light so I am delighted to inform you that you unlocked some sort of teleportation ability along with the light weapon and armor that I sensed."
She heaved her stomach empty. She leaned against the pedestal, careful not to touch the orb above it, but she had to catch her balance for a moment. She processed what Button had told her before asking, "Is it common to throw up after absorbing a magical concept?"
"No, but it is common after unlocking a teleportation ability. Soon your body will adjust internally to the process. Then that will stop happening. It is one of the reasons we don't give Sparks who are absorbing essences clothes." Button said.
She nodded before pushing herself off the pedestal and looking around for a pool of water. She had walked past some before so finding one was easy. She rinsed her feet and legs and washed out her mouth. A pedestal called to her invitingly in the bottom center of the pool, some sort of water-themed power no doubt. She wasn't immediately interested in getting another one yet. She wanted to see what the armor and sword were about first.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Freshly clean, with goosebumps up and down herself she stepped back into the light of the opening. It felt glorious. More so than standing in soft grass outside during a mild summer day. It felt like her body was drinking in the light. It was feeding her soul. The feeling made her laugh out loud in surprise. She stuck her arms out and drank it in. Her nakedness was forgotten for the first time as she reveled in the light and warmth.
She stood like that for several moments, drinking in the sensations of being surrounded by light. Then a new instinct kicked in. Something was telling her that she had absorbed enough light to do something with it. Like a battery being filled, she could turn something on. She decided to start with a weapon, still reveling in the light on her skin and unwilling to cover up yet.
In her youth, she was on an archery team during high school. She called to mind the compound bow they used for target shooting. It was moderately complex, but she had watched Olympic archers with all their gear attached to their bows and the one she thought of was not as complicated as that. She watched her torso glow before the glow traveled down her arms and into her hands. She held both of them palm side up and allowed the light to leak out of herself and into the air above them.
The light formed a projection of the bow she was thinking of before turning hard and dropping into her hands. It was a rush to watch something magical and flashy happen. She wanted the moment to last forever so she tried something. She exerted her force over time and the ever-present chirping of birds slowed then stopped as she stood there in the light with her hands on a glimmering bow that looked like it was made of pure white light. She pushed herself to try and make the moment reverse so she could try summoning the bow again for the first time, but it was like a wall stopped her. Trying to go backward through the flow of time seemed like a dangerous and bad idea to her all of a sudden so she stopped pushing. Instead, she made the moment last as long as she could. Looking around trying to commit every detail to memory before the flow of time started back up again.
"Button," she said.
"Yes, Miss Skylark?" He inquired.
"This is the best thing ever."
"Many feel that way Miss Skylark, I am happy you have found a power that fills you with joy." It replied.
"I do enjoy it Button." She allowed the bow to turn back into light and pulled it back into her hands. Some of the light escaped as she did so. It lit up the area around her like a beacon. She decided to try armor or clothes next. Something made of light to cover her up. She cast about before deciding on a simple leather armor cosplay she had seen at a comic book convention she had attended with a friend some years ago.
It had a simple undershirt and pants with a leather breastplate and thigh protection. Soft boots for the feet. It wasn't as fancy as the full plate mail that had first appeared, but she didn't want to be bogged down by something heavy. She imagined it all over her body, soon the light gathered in her chest and then flowed out from her center to make her whole body glow. Then the light came out from her and solidified into being around her. It was all the same bright white of the bow she had called into being. She wondered if she could change the color. It was just light after all.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, thinking of simple greens and browns to make the outfit into. She felt something inside her shift and call back to the light outside of her. She could feel it as it changed the wavelengths to suit her desire to not look like a glowing beacon of light, but rather something slightly more mundane.
When she opened her eyes the outfit she had conjured had indeed changed its color. The parts that were supposed to be leather were now brown. The undershirt and pants were a lovely dark green. The texture however was wrong. It glimmered as if it was made of the shiny holographic paper put onto the back of cards. She shrugged. She would have to play around with it later. For now, she was in clothes and she couldn't see through them.
She tried to poke a finger through it knowing it was just light. Just like the bow, however, it had hardened and didn't allow her finger to pass through. Despite this, she could barely feel the clothes on her. They were feather-light and warm. As she stood in the light pouring into the cavern she could tell it was absorbing some of the light before it got to her and was using it to charge up the fake cloth.
"Does light magic often turn you into a solar-powered battery?" She asked her companion.
"Many light abilities do need light to function and give the wielder the power to store light for later use," her guide replied.
"Well, I might sit here for a minute before heading into the dark then. I like that I have clothes on now."
"May I suggest practicing with the light armor and weapon a bit so that you can call on them quickly while you soak up the sun?" Button said.
"That's a great idea! I summoned a bow out of light, but I don't have any arrows, maybe some throwing knives." She said starting to think about what else she could conjure.
"Could you not also conjure arrows of light Miss Skylark?"
A full 3 heartbeats went by as she thought about how obvious that was. "Button?"
"Yes, Miss?"
"That is an excellent idea."
"Thank you Miss Skylark," he said chipper as ever.
She stayed in the light as she practiced, shifting her armor around to different colors, and discovered she could also make it glow or dim as well though it always let out some sort of glistening effect even if minor. "No hiding in the shadows for me." She muttered.
She also practiced summoning various weapons and was delighted that when she called up large weapons like a buster sword that was 6 feet long, it was as light as the video games made it seem. She also called up huge war hammers that were bigger than her torso but no heavier than a baseball bat. She even got back to calling up her bow and figuring out the best way to summon arrows.
She started by reaching down like there was a quiver on the floor in front of her like when she was on the team, but soon found out it was faster and easier to summon them as she pulled the string of light back. She shot a few into the distance. Within the light they glowed, but when they got into the dimmer light of the cavern they lit it up like a glow stick in the dark. She wondered if she could make them brighter like her clothes.
After some concentration and experimentation, she made it happen. A shot lit up the dark and struck a stalactite. It made the whole area around it light up like a light bulb going off. She stared at it in wonder. It was so cool to shoot light arrows that could light up a whole space! She reached for it with her mind, trying to see when it would go out and quite unexpectedly she was suddenly 10 feet up in the air right next to it.
She felt her light armor absorbing most of the impact as she hit the stalagmite below and slid down its bumpy but smooth side. Her stomach roiled inside her and she groaned before turning onto her side and dry heaving. Nothing was left to come out. She had to get a hang of teleporting.
She rolled back and lay staring up at the light arrow as it dimmed then flicked out leaving her in the dark. Her armor had dimmed as well as it had hit and absorbed the impact of falling and sliding, but the light she had inside her was feeding it and it started to shimmer slightly again, not disappearing completely. She felt depleted like the internal battery she had been charging had been used up and she needed more sunlight.
As she lay there listening to her instincts on her new powers she realized that while the armor had absorbed the falling damage, she still hurt from where her knees and arms had struck as she fell. They stung a lot. Her mind had been happy to go along with this bizarre process because it was all a dream clicked over. She never got hurt in dreams, things that would hurt her would wake her up. If she was in pain, then she wasn't in a dream.
She sat up eyes wide. The minor amount of concentration needed to keep the armor conjured fled from her mind as panic set in. It blinked out and the power from the light held within flashed away from her in a single burst. She didn't even think about trying to reabsorb any of it. She sat naked on the dirt of the cave floor wide-eyed.
"This isn't a dream," she said in realization. She finally believed it.
"I believe that was the first thing I told you Miss Skylark. Are you alright? I'm getting readings from your system that your heart rate is spiking and you have above-average levels of adrenaline." Button asked.
"Button, I'm going to need you to be quiet. I need to figure this out and having something talking in my head that I didn't consent to being there is not helping!" her voice had slowly pitched up as everything hit her all at once. For once Button didn't say a word.