After finishing their late afternoon lunch, Emily and most of the expedition members relax on the grass staring into the distance. The group have varying expressions while gazing at what most likely amounts to their imminent grave. Most of the vassal mages seem nervous, almost certain they will be the coming collateral damage, whereas the nobles hold an air of confidence and anticipation, clearly excited about the potential resources that await them.
Emily herself has a mixture of excitement and intense curiosity plastered across her face, looking forward to fighting beasts and discovering the secrets of the mysterious forest. Glancing to her side, she sees Ivor staring out into the distance with a look of grim determination and acceptance.
“What’s wrong, big guy? I didn’t think you’d be so worried. Haven’t you been into The Glade a few times before?”
“I have,” he signs his agreement, shifting uncomfortably and refusing to make eye contact. “But, the groups I came with were only here to gather some of the more common herbs and kill small beasts. We stayed around the outer edges and certainly never tried looking for an entrance to The Crystal Waters.”
“Ah, I see.” Emily nods, falling into silent contemplation for a few moments.
I should have realised from Oscar saying that his family didn’t have enough data to design a training room for The Waters’ environment, that expeditions this deep are uncommon. I could rewind and get Ivor out before we even set off this morning...
“Hey,” Emily says softly, pulling Ivor’s gaze to her before signing a question. “You sure you want to come? It’s not too late to go back you know.”
He immediately shakes his head, fixing Emily with a stare far more passionate than she has ever seen from the shy boy before.
“I’m nervous because it’s deeper than I’ve gone before, but I want a chance to see The Waters and discover new ingredients!” he signs with certainty.
Emily smiles at his drive for discovery.
“As long as you’re sure. Also, I meant what I said last night. We’re both getting through this alive, no matter what. Just make sure you have my back.”
Not like I really need it.
Oscar approaches as they chat, dropping down onto the floor beside them. They both greet him, and he responds cheerfully before his face falls into a serious expression as he looks at Emily.
“I just wanted to check one last time, are you sure you’re alright heading the group?” he asks.
“Yeah. What’s with the sudden concern?” she responds with a raised brow.
“I just wanted to make sure before we go in. I do have a conscience, you know. I feel a little bad making such a young mage stand in front of me.”
“Sheesh, I can’t be that much younger than you guys. How old even are you?”
“I’m twenty-five,” he answers with a smile, standing up and patting Emily on the shoulder. “None of the other combatants are below twenty.”
Emily is surprised by his words, looking over to Ivor who’s grinning at her.
“And here I thought you were the old one.”
“Told you twenty is young,” he signs back with glee.
“Right, everyone into formation!” Oscar shouts, moving to stand between the group and The Glade.
Emily raises her fist towards Ivor. He grins and bumps it, nodding confidently, before they both stand up.
“Well, talk to you later,” Emily casually says while walking forward to join Oscar.
She wordlessly settles into place, looking back over the quick-moving mages behind her. The four luggage carriers in the middle all have large fabric bags double their size on their backs, all traced with lightly glowing, purple runes.
Are those spatial bags? They have to be: we’re meant to have tents after all.
After everyone has reached their position, Oscar gives Emily a small nod before shouting: “Move out!”
They all start moving as one, trekking out into the open field as the cars start their engines and begin driving back to Chroni. As they reach the border of The Glade, Oscar taps Emily and Dante’s shoulders before raising a hand silently and signalling for a scan. Everyone halts their steps, turning their focus to Ivor standing with his eyes shut. Emily and Dante are the only exceptions, both keeping their eyes ahead, Emily’s glowing a pale orange.
Emily’s visual check of the forest floor produces the same result as Ivor’s, both finding nothing. However, her scan of the canopies looming above reveals half a dozen small birds watching their approach. Gesturing to Oscar to wait for a moment, Emily summons a small iron blade. Taking it firmly between her fingers, she pulls her arm back before whipping it forward, sending the blade directly into the chest of one of the birds.
As the dead bird falls limply to the ground, the others take off in alarm, flying further along the periphery of The Glade.
Whoops, I guess none of them are dangerous.
Signalling all clear, Emily moves forward after another tap on the shoulder, flipping her hood onto her head. They step foot into the treeline, and are swallowed by the dense fog and heavy rain, vanishing from the outside world. Steadily they creep forward, maintaining a constant pace as they continue forward into the unknown.
After ten minutes of moving, with Emily watching for enemies ahead the whole time, Oscar signals for another earth scan, this one done by Enzo, who revealed that morning that he’d learned the spell to help reduce Emily and Ivor’s loads. When they find nothing nearby, they continue walking. They repeat this pattern over and over, stopping a couple of times when they spot nearby movement, but not encountering a single attack.
At just gone 10 pm, they come upon a small clearing. They halt in the centre. Ivor runs another scan, but finds nothing. After Emily confirms no sign of heat in the trees, Oscar pulls out six white iron stakes, wrapped in dull green runes with a single lightless wind crystal embedded in the top of each. He keeps two while dividing the others: two to Emily, and one each to Bianca and Ricardo.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
They split, going to separate edges of the clearing and stabbing a stake into the ground. Emily places her hand on the stake and instantly begins pouring wind attribute mana in, igniting the runes and crystal in a flash of colour. After dumping a few hundred mana points into the stake, she stands up and moves to another point, planting another stake and filling it with mana too.
She stands up and walks over to rejoin the group as Oscar finishes filling the last stake, and a faint green hexagonal magic circle forms around them. Emily notices a few of her groupmates breathing sighs of relief once the array is set up and a familiar sound-isolating effect takes hold over their surroundings.
“Good job today everyone. We’ve made good progress towards our goal. If we keep moving at the pace we did today, we’ll make it to The Crystal Waters’ entrance within the week. Carriers, distribute the tents and let's set up camp for today. Emily, you’re on watch till camp is done,” Oscar swiftly instructs, and everybody moves as one to follow.
Emily moves to sit at the outer edge of the clearing, dropping her activation of Technomancer’s Breath and casting both her detection spells at once. With her second core pulsing earthen detection periodically, she stares out into the forest around them, enjoying the dull hum of rain falling on her hood as she scans for life.
Ten minutes later, Oscar walks over to join her at the edge of camp.
“Hey, do you want first, second, or third watch?”
“I’m fine with first, just bring me some food and I’ll stay here,” Emily says casually, not feeling remotely tired.
“Okay, I’ll ask Ivor,” Oscar replies, turning on his heel and trudging back towards the gathered tents.
Time to rest. Core two, sleep.
Her second core falls dormant, and Emily starts deactivating infra-sight every five minutes to send out a pulse of earthen detection. Ivor soon brings her a small pasty, heated with Dante’s help. He passes her the food before wishing her luck and heading to his bed, preparing to take second watch himself.
The rest of Emily’s groupmates disappear into their tents to sleep soon after, leaving Emily out alone. A few hours pass with no signs of movement in the eerie forest, then forty minutes before the end of Emily’s watch, she senses faint movement a hundred metres away. Maintaining earthen detection from the second she spots it, she slowly stands up and walks around the outskirts of the barrier, checking all other sides for more enemies.
Once sure nothing else is sneaking up on the camp, Emily returns to her original position and feels the creatures have approached fifty metres closer. Now she can count their footsteps.
Four small quadrupeds moving slowly towards me. They are coming in a straight line towards the camp.
Their direction sealing her choice, Emily steps through the barrier and creeps forward into the trees. She moves out to the side of the encroaching threat and switches to infra-sight once within ten metres of them. Four glowing bundles of heat are revealed, and Emily recognises their small forms to be ocelax, a weak catlike magical beast that uses a thin sheen of water on its fur to slip past attacks.
Easy.
Emily steps back, repositioning herself to stand behind the four unsuspecting cats. Dropping infra-sight, she silently weaves together flying lightning. A long, shimmering silver wire forms, wrapped around her right arm from the elbow to the wrist, where it seamlessly connects with a sharp, bladed metal dart.
Staring straight ahead, her arm whips past in a flash, throwing the dart into the back of an ocelax. The moment the blade connects, a quiet crackling light rips along the wire, flickering across the beast’s fur and dropping it to the ground in an uncontrollable spasm. Emily yanks hard on the wire, tearing the blade clean and letting it sail back behind her.
With an elegant twist, she bends the dart's momentum, sending it shooting through the air into a second beast. This time, the ocelax notices the incoming projectile just before it's struck, managing to let out a pained squeal before passing out from the shock. The other two react quickly, spinning to face Emily with their fangs bared.
Emily grins back at them, pulling her weapon back into her hand. The two cats spring at her, and she takes a step back while throwing the dart out to her side, then swiping her arm forward in an arc. Before either cat can touch her, the dart slashes past. It catches one in the front legs, cutting them to pieces and disabling it with a shock, and cleanly slices the other's throat.
Emily calmly moves between the fallen beasts, stabbing the dart through each one’s head to finish them off. She then forces open their mouths and cuts out their tongues before skinning a patch on one of their backs and wrapping the tongues up in the slick fur.
It’s a shame we don’t have the space to carry whole hides.
Emily walks back to camp clutching the most valuable magical material from the ocelax in her hand. She settles back down in her previous position, dropping the wrapped-up tongues on the floor beside her.
Thirty minutes later, Emily wakes up Ivor and warns him about her encounter.
“Be careful, there are some small ocelax bodies about forty metres out from camp in that direction,” she signs, gesturing towards where she left the corpses. “They may attract other beasts, so be on guard.”
As he nods in acknowledgement, Emily turns and heads towards the tent the others set up for her. Reaching the entrance to the small, pitched tarp, she pulls open the flap and steps in while casting cleanse on her entire body. Feeling a shiver of cold pass over her, she holds her arm outside the tent and watches a murky flush of water drop from it to the ground.
This spell was a wonderful idea. Thanks Jules.
With a warm smile, she sets the bundle of tongues down on the floor outside before letting the flap fall closed, blocking out the rain. Sitting down on the soft pad left in the centre of the small space, Emily closes her eyes.
I don’t trust everyone here enough to sleep completely, but I will still be able to react if someone approaches while I’m meditating!
She falls into the rhythm of technomancer’s breath and silently gathers mana through the night while pondering the complexities of space.
***
Six hours later, Emily’s meditation is broken by a mana signature approaching the entrance to her tent. The flap is pushed aside as Enzo peeks his head in.
“Time to break camp,” he informs her before ducking back out.
Emily quickly follows him, grabbing the bundle of tongues from the floor as she goes and heading towards the small gathering of people at the centre of the tightly packed tents.
Three hours left till core one wakes up. I’ll have to be slightly more on guard for a bit.
Emily sits down next to Oscar, silently watching the luggage carriers unloading food from their packs and handing it to Dante and the other fire mages for heating. After a few minutes of waiting for her turn to eat, Emily’s curiosity gets the better of her, so she absentmindedly pulls up the system windows of the carrier’s bags.
¯¯¯¯¯
[Temporary Bag of Holding]
[Rank:] D
[Description:] A bag with a temporary spatial expansion array installed.
[Effect:] Holds a freely accessible, five-metre cubed pocket dimension.
_____
Her brow raises in surprise as she reads the description.
“How do those bags hold so much? I thought low-grade spatial storages were only a metre or so,” she asks Oscar, pointedly glancing towards his necklace as she does.
“You’re thinking of permanent holder-locked storage. There are a few differences, one is that personal dimensional items like my necklace can be accessed freely by the holder, summoning items from within them to their hands with just a thought. Whereas items like those bags are bound to a specific opening on the object. Anyone can access their contents if they have access to the opening. The second major difference is permanent or temporary. Both my necklace and each of those bags used one lesser space crystal each to make, but those bags will be out of energy in a month, whereas my necklace will last forever.”
“I see, and the parts of the enchantment used for summoning items from the void will use more mana too,” Emily mutters.
“Exactly!”
“What are you going to do if the bags run out of mana before the end of the expedition? Isn’t there a chance we’re here for longer than a month?”
“In that case we have Callum to help refill them until we get back,” Oscar answers calmly, gesturing to the mage in question eating on the other side of the group. “Or, who knows, maybe by the time that happens you’ll suddenly tell us you’re a space mage as well!”
Oscar laughs at his joke while accepting a portion of porridge from Cian. Considering her progress in her meditation last night, a small grin forms on Emily’s face.
Maybe I will.