I walked towards the east for hours before I finally stopped and rested. I found a small hill and with a few thoughts and some earth magic, my underground campsite was completed. My mind buzzed as I sat atop one of the raised platforms inside where I ended up putting my bedroll.
There was an odd feeling, almost like a tingling in my mind. I closed my eyes and went into my mind space where I would put together constructs and was surprised to see a twenty-four node construct hanging in the air.
Every node was Earth-based, and suddenly it came to me. These node groups were the individual spells I used to create my underground campsite. As soon as the thought came to my mind the eight groups of three nodes merged into a twelve node outline of the underground campsite. I heard a small chime and opened my eyes to see a new floating text box.
[ System Notification ]
Label new spell as Underground Campsite?
{ Yes } / { No }
The system must have read my thoughts. I selected ‘Yes’ and the box vanished. The buzz or tingle in my mind vanished just as my chest burned. I pulled my shirt off and looked at the trees on my chest to see the Earth branch on the Aether tree now had yellow leaves.
Was that how more complex spells were created? Did the system see I created something from multiple smaller spells and helped me along by creating a better single spell to do the same thing? I put my shirt back on and pulled my bedroll from my bag and lay down. Staring up at the stone ceiling I thought about what else I could come up with while I drifted to sleep.
The following morning I awoke to the sounds of birds singing above me. I looked over at the other platform expecting to see Luin, but it was empty. With my heart aching, I pushed myself to my feet and rolled up my bed, storing it away.
Walking outside the air was cool and crisp. The sky was clear of clouds and there was nothing but plains of grass in every direction that I could see. I opened my Magic Map and pointed myself towards the south of Mythtide and the coast to where I thought that the circled ‘x’ was on the handwritten map.
As I walked through the field I kept a look out for any moment through the waist-high grass but couldn’t see anything. I was keeping an eye out for any threats as I had thought better of trying to kill slimes all day as their cores wouldn’t get me very far anymore. I’d be better off going back to the forest with the Fyrbees.
I continued walking towards the coast for a few hours when I began to see what looked like the tops of mountains in the distance.
As the sun passed its zenith in the sky, I could clearly see smaller mountains and hills before me. They spread far out to the north and south. Looking at my map, I could see Mythtide a half day's travel to the northeast of my current location.
Wanting to verify where I was, I removed the letter with the map on it from my bag and tried to push it onto my Magic Map, hoping it would allow me to find the exact location. The letter did not crumble as I had hoped so instead I stored it back in my pack.
How in the world was I going to find where I needed to go? Maybe they would have left me clues as to where to go and find their camp?
I began walking towards the mountains making sure to keep glancing around my surroundings for any local monsters or beasts just in case. As I crested a large hill, I caught a blue blur of motion to my right. I watched the area for a minute or two before I caught sight of a small orb of blue shooting into the sky before vanishing in the distance.
Well, if that isn’t a clue, then I’m as gullible as Heldin was back at the academy.
I angled towards where the blue flare or spell vanished and soon began walking along a small ridge that connected the hill to a small rocky mountain or hill. I wasn’t sure when a hill became a mountain. My elevation slowly climbed as I made my way towards the location of where the flare went.
A couple of hours later I found a path up and over the steadily growing mountains. By now I was in no doubt that these were no longer hills as the elevation had increased greatly making the trek much harder than it was before. I had to backtrack a few times to find paths up some of the more sheer rock faces. I even went as far as making a ladder up and over one such rock face with my basic Earth Manipulation spell when there was no readily apparent way through.
I was currently taking a break at the peak overlooking a valley below me. Suddenly the blue flare shot off again from the center of the valley. It looked as if it was coming from underground. The valley itself was beginning to be covered by growing shadows so I looked behind me and at the Sun, verifying my suspicion that in another hour or two it would be below the horizon and this area below would be pitch black.
Not wanting to climb down while it was dark, I mentally thought of the Underground Campsite, and to my surprise, a glowing outline for the spell came into view. I could move it with thought and willed it to form in the wider part of the peak.
A few moments later the stone shifted and the curved stairs going down formed in front of me. Going down to the campsite I laid out my bedroll and got a small fire going inside the fireplace as the air at this altitude had been getting steadily colder.
I went back up to the surface and created a stone chair to watch the sunset. I was a bit confused as to why the blue flares had stopped. Was my savior down below? Did he or she know I was close?
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An hour later I watched as Raohr, this system’s sun begin to sink below the horizon. A melody of pinks, reds, and oranges played out in the sky as the horizon slowly ate away at its brilliants. With a flash of sudden light, the sun was gone.
Above me, the night sky’s splendor began to reveal itself. I finally caught sight of the small purple moon at the center of the three worlds I had seen when I arrived. The surface of the moon was incredibly smooth, almost like a purple unblemished marble. I couldn’t make out any features outside the satin purple color of its surface.
To my right, I could see one of the planets peeking out from the horizon. Half of the other planet was to my left. It was lit up like the moon back home. Half of the planet was illuminated by the sun that had sunk below the horizon of this planet that I was on.
How was this possible? Did someone create these planets, or were they moved here into place somehow? What was it that kept them in this stable of an orbit I wondered, as it shouldn’t be possible? I had a suspicion that the smaller purple moon was a big part of how it all worked.
I was leaning backward, looking up at the stars when I began to hear growls and calls in the darkness. When other calls began to answer back not far from where I sat, I got up and went down to my campsite. I wasn’t in a hurry to meet anything new at night.
I awoke to noise above me. It sounded like humming or possibly singing? The bedroll went into my bag, and the rest of the lumber for the fire followed it. As I slowly opened the stone door leading the steps up, I heard something begin moving swiftly away. As I ran up the steps and looked around I couldn’t spot who had been there just moments ago.
Looking around more carefully, I saw my stone chair, and what looked like a pipe of some kind with a small stream of smoke coming out of the end of it. I went over and picked it up. I brought the end towards my nose and took a large sniff. I began to cough quite violently, it didn’t smell good, in fact, it smelt like pine and death. I laid the pipe on the chair, thinking that maybe the owner would come back for it.
Looking around the chair some more, I found what looked like tracks, but nothing I could comprehend or could recall seeing would have made them. They looked kinda like a snake’s tracks but if a bunch of them had been going in different directions while all going in the same direction at the same time. I just couldn’t figure out how they were made.
The tracks went over to a cliff, where they suddenly vanished. I walked over and looked down to see if I could discover anything else. Imagine my surprise that at about twenty feet below me I caught sight of a tentacle or two going into a hole in the side of the rock face.
Nope, not happening I thought. I definitely didn’t need to satisfy my curiosity about this. I looked down at the valley then to my left and then right. I spotted a ridge going downwards and what looked like a worn path from there down into the valley.
Finding the way down, I gave another look over the cliff, my curiosity getting the better of me. I was looking into two piercing crystal blue eyes of a small man, who was wearing a pointed red hat on the top of his head. He screamed and then I screamed back as his head and hat vanished a moment later back into the hole in the side of the cliff. I pulled myself back from the edge. What in the fuck was that? There were people living here?
“Hello?” I shouted down the cliff face again.
No answer.
I shouted again, but the man never showed himself again. I waited for a few more moments just in case and then decided he must have been scared and went deep down his hole or tunnel. I looked back over at the ridge to my right and began walking down it to the valley below.
The ridge was thin in a few places and I was afraid the ground below my feet would give out under my weight. I was relieved when I finally reached the other side and began to slowly climb down the rocks to the worn path below.
When I reached the path, I could see it led out of the valley I was in and around the large mountain to the south, vanishing around the side of it. Turning around I began to descend along the path and down into the valley.
A few hours later as the sun was directly overhead, I reached the flat bottom of the valley. The entire valley was one large field of knee-high grass. I couldn’t see where the blue flares had come from so I began to wander the field in hopes of seeing something to give me an indication of where I needed to go.
After a while of not finding anything, I began to look at the walls of the valley. I spotted the ridge I had followed and the peak where I had camped the night before. I spotted a few dark holes below the peak on the rockface. I watched for a while but never caught sight of anything entering or leaving the holes.
Not knowing what to do, I raised a stone chair and sat down. As I sat down I groaned at my stupidity. I sat up and walked away from the chair. I willed a large column of stone to rise underneath me and I began to move upward.
As the pillar reached up into the air I could almost see the entire valley’s floor. I spotted a section of the valley where what looked like a large hole was set next to a smaller hole.
Willing the pillar to descend I walked towards the holes in the valley’s surface. As I reached them I recognized the curved stairs as I stood above them. The smaller hole I had seen was the chimney for the Underground Campsite’s fireplace.
“What the hell is going on?!” I shouted to the empty valley.
I walked down the steps and opened the familiar stone door. The inside looked familiar but was more advanced than my campsite. Inside was what I would have called a foyer or living room. There was a rocking chair next to the fireplace and a single wooden bed in the corner. The bed looked like someone had just got done sleeping in it.
The next room was a kitchen. The cooking area on the other side of the wall of the foyer’s fireplace, and I could see into the foyer if I bent down. What looked like a stone coffin from the island sat to the side. I went over and opened it to see the familiar inky blackness.
I fished out a few skins of the sweet juice and a bag of the jerky. Looking around I couldn’t see any other exits from the kitchen so I went back into the foyer. Looking around the foyer once more, I spotted a small piece of paper pinned to the wall. I walked over and studied it.
Zeal,
Fifty meters below you is a cavern. You’re going to need to Void Gate below to reach it. All other schools of magic won’t work below the surface of this valley. Take the day and practice on the valley’s floor. Once you can will the exit gate to appear a distance of fifty meters away you should be safe to go below.
Destroy this note after reading, The Void Lord.
I removed the note from the wall and looked at the backside where a small note was penned.
Really? Go practice!
I had a huge assumption, my benefactor was one of these gods I had been told about. Why were they helping me? And, what was his goal?