Hunting ended early when I found the carcass of a small deer that had been fed upon by wolves. Flies were already showing some interest, but it couldn't have been more than a day old. By ripping and using a stone as a primitive bashing tool, I disconnected the relatively intact hind-quarters from the thoroughly chewed-up torso. I was being downgraded from hunter-gatherer to scavenger, but I was in no position to be choosy today. I tore chunks of meat and strips of fat from the stiff carcass and roasted them over the hot ashes of my campfire. I couldn't believe how marvelous I felt after filling my stomach with meat, in spite of its disgusting origin. Even my head felt clearer with some sweet, delicious fat to power it. I carried what remained far away from my camp.
With the unexpected boon of easy food, I could turn my attention to building a proper shelter. Building material was abundant, and I found that without any arguing or complaining from Kaapo, construction went a lot more smoothly. When afternoon approached, I had a decently insulated sleeping area with a mattress of dry reeds from the stream. I tried to think of a way to add a fireplace to the construction, but I decided that it would be far too risky. I felt proud of having turned this patch of wilderness into a home so quickly, and I was confident that it I could make it more comfortable as time went on.
I hunted around for a stone I could use as a cutting tool, but I had no luck in this direction. I did discover a part of the stream near my shelter that had abundant red clay, which could be molded easily. I decided that this was an incredibly useful find. I had spent five of the six attribute points I had started with on opening the first two Gates of Destiny, so my build was not specialized for wilderness survival at all. I was a mage, and I needed to use that fact to my advantage if I wanted to make any headway.
Taking a few balls of clay from the stream, I sat by my fire and began working on my Signing. The main problem I had with my lightning is that it was the same every time. I couldn't turn it up to deal with larger enemies, or turn it down to light a campfire without wasting my precious energy. Range was also a major problem. I had made the mistake of choosing all my skill talents before I had opened the Gates of Destiny, so while my core abilities in magic were solid (I had a skill of 3 in Occult for my Thaumaturgy and a 4 in Mysticism for my Theurgy) my Lightning Elementalism and Signing had started off at 0. That, I guessed, was the reason that I had so few options with Signing and so little range and efficiency with lightning. To succeed, I needed to rank up my skills with practice, and find ways to use Occult and Mysticism to bypass those limitations. To that end, I got to work making talismans.
When I had been working on the wand that I had used to kill that swarm of bees, I learned that I could use sigils to control how my lightning expressed itself. After a few attempts, I arrived at a “triggering” sigil that I was satisfied with. With a large enough collection of relevant sigils, I could essentially write a program into the clay detailing what the magic would do. I devised symbols for “Contain”, “Release”, “If/When”, “Shatter”, “Touch”, “Scatter”, “Focus”, and additional marking to indicate “Suddenly”, and “Gradually”. On one level, I knew that these symbols were completely arbitrary. I had made them up, and I could theoretically make any set of squiggles make any effect I wanted. On another level, however, I understood that my power could only function if the symbols were not arbitrary to me. I had to infuse them with clear, unambiguous meaning in my own mind, so I had to use the same set of symbols every time, and be careful to remember them and recreate them precisely.
I turned one of the clay lumps into a tablet, on which I wrote out the beginning of my new alphabet. I infused the symbols with meaning, but was careful not to give them any of my energy. I didn't want the tablet to actually try to execute the set of contradictory instructions. Next, I decided to try to put together a kind of electrical grenade. I shaped a clay ball into a small tetrahedron, and drew sigils into the three faces with a small stick. “Contain” on one side, then “Release”, “Quickly”, “If/When” “Shatter” on the other two. Satisfied with my work, I touched two fingers to the “Contain” sigil, and let my power flow into the device.
Whiteness filled my vision, and I felt nothing but pain and heard nothing but a whining ring for several minutes. When my vision began to clear, I found that I was covered in steaming hot clay. My grenade idea clearly needed work. I suspected that the problem was the material. Baked clay would probably work better than raw, and maybe something more conductive or resistant would be better still. I would have to experiment, and I should do it a lot more carefully. If a predator had been nearby, my adventure might have ended right there.
I was starting to get hungry again as the sun set, but that would have to wait. I was in a much better position today than I had been in yesterday, and that was the important thing. The sky was clear that night, and I sat up for while listening to the forest and staring at the sky full of stars. I slept like a log that night in my nest of reeds.
Over the next few days, my fortunes continued to improve. I found that I was getting better at avoiding the more dangerous forest denizens. I had discovered a few more nests of the giant beetles, as well as a species of giant centipedes, but once I knew what to look for, they become easier to avoid. Ground squirrels, who usually made their nests in fallen trees, became a staple of my diet. I finally managed to create a set of stone tools for cutting and scraping, which made my meals much neater. My magical experiments finally began to yield success. I now had a simple oven in which to make simple ceramics, which allowed me to successfully create some grenades and mines charged with my lightning. I scattered my mines around the camp, ready to zap the first person who touched them. The delay sequence that allowed me to infuse them without setting them off had taken quite a few tries to get right. It was still an inefficient and risky process to create and infuse them, but without glass or metal to work with, I had make do with pottery. My make-shift earthen kiln also provided some delicate but usable plates and bowls, of which I was intensely proud, especially after the first few attempts turned out to be failures. My greatest achievement, however, was a more refined version of my magic wand. It looked like a chopstick, but it could focus my lightning like a laser at very low power, allowing me to light a campfire for about a tenth the energy and effort it used to take. Little by little, my camp was turning into a home.
As I became more comfortable with my daily existence in this place, however, unpleasant thoughts began to trickle back into my mind. First and foremost, it was getting colder. That didn't just mean that I had to find warmer clothes, although I did. It also meant that all my sources of food would soon either disappear or become far rarer. Normally, people who lived in climates with intense winters had to carefully store food for months prior to have enough. I had neither the time nor the knowledge to do anything like that. If nothing changed, I would be in trouble soon.
The second problem was loneliness. Ever since I had decided to leave Kaapo behind and strike out on my own, I had had the distractions of dealing with cold and hunger. I was still often cold and hungry, but now that I had a relatively warm place to sleep and relatively good luck with hunting, I began to pine for someone to talk to. I caught myself talking to myself a few times, and had to scold myself afterward, which probably didn't help. Even Kaapo had been better than no company at all, but I wasn't yet desperate enough to go looking for him. The thing that had given me the most fright recently, in spite of all the dangerous creatures I had to contend with, was the time I caught a glance at my own face in the water of the stream. My hair was a matted and unkempt mess, my teeth were yellow, and my eyes looked tired and unfocused. It was the face of a stranger, and I knew that it would only grow worse the longer I lived alone like this.
Eventually, I decided that it was time to go talk to the Gnomes.
Thanks to Olga, I knew they had some kind of colony to the south-west, although she had given me no information about it other than the fact that I shouldn't go anywhere near it. Ignoring her advise was a considerable risk, of course, but I felt ready to take that chance. They should have some kind of system of barter that I could use to get the provisions and tools I needed, and meeting new people would be a welcome break from loneliness. I prepared myself for the journey by constructing a satchel of sorts from some fibrous weeds I had found. It wasn't attractive, comfortable, or sturdy, but it allowed me to bring along some dried meat I had accumulated, along with my collection of wands, clay grenades, and primitive tools.
My first stop was the marking near the garden where I encountered the wooden wolf monster. I wasn't any closer to being able to deal with that than I had been last time. A few grenades wouldn't be enough; I would need something more like a bazooka, and I'm just not there yet. I would have to circle back here to find out what the benefit of defeating it might be. I had to assume that there would be some benefit.
Evergreens became fewer and further between as I climbed hill after tree-covered hill. I was glad of my navigation sigils; it would be very easy to get lost among the miles of forested hills. I found several trees that were dropping wild walnuts. I gathered as many as I could carry. The air began to smell of cedar. When I first entered the forest, it all looked the same to me, but I was coming to see the natural variations in the plants, terrain, and atmosphere that gave each region a unique look and feel.
I built a small fire and slept in the woods that night. I realized that I now thought of my hastily-built little hovel as my home, I had taken it away from the forest. A black bear wandered past that night, just visible in the red light of the dying fire. I stood and faced it as it stared at me for a moment, then turned and lumbered away. Clearly, it needed nothing from me.
The next morning, I began to see signs of habitation. I began to see clean, neat tree-stumps that had clearly been brought down by a saw. They were cut very low to the ground, too. A human lumberjack would have lie on his stomach to saw a tree like that. Further on, I found a stream with a small bridge over it, so small that I had to walk sideways to cross it. Small openings began to appear in the hills, much too regular and round to be natural caves. I spotted a column of smoke steadily rising from one of them, as though it were being used to ventilate a cave. Based on these signs, I had to be within their territory now, but I hadn't spotted a single one. They could all be sleeping, of course. I had no notion of what sort of habits these little people might have. On the other hand, I knew for a fact that Olga had been able to melt into the scenery with ease, so that I had missed her at a distance of a dozen paces. I tried to scan my surroundings, really paying attention to each detail in turn. I thought I had become better at doing this over a week of searching for food and avoiding predators, but I had to assume that the Gnomes were grand-masters of avoiding unwanted attention.
Naturally, I considered just walking up to a random hole to see if anyone was home, but if there was, how would that work out? I had no idea how big this Gnome society was. For all I knew, what I was doing was equivalent to wandering into Cairo and randomly knocking on someone's door, hoping they happen to know my friend who lives in Cairo. Assuming they didn't just put a crossbow bolt through my eye, they would probably laugh at me and tell me to get lost.
As I continued, the holes became more common. If this was a Gnome town, I had to be near the center. As I crested a hill, I saw something that forced me to stop suddenly. It was a massive pit, like a sinkhole. The forest just abruptly came to an end, dropping into a pit about twelve meters across. I couldn't tell how deep it was.
I approached cautiously. The breeze across the pit produced a moaning sound that made my ears hurt a little. The edge did not look safe at all, but I was intensely curious as to how deep this thing was. Looking down from the edge, I saw that I could not see the bottom, the shaft disappeared into blackness after twenty meters or so. There were a set of ladders leading down the side of the shaft into the darkness, but they were much too small for me to use.
“Surprise!” The voice behind me nearly made me jump out of my skin. My hands waved in the air as I tried to regain my balance. I rounded on the figure that had snuck up on me.
“Are you trying to kill me!” I screamed at the tiny gnome. It was Olga, of course. She was pointing at me and shaking with laughter.
It took a Olga a moment to stop laughing, all while I stood nearby grumbling at how close I had just come to falling to my death.
“How did you even know I was coming?” I asked.
“I summoned you. It's something you may want to bear in mind the next time you owe a favor to a Fae.”
“What are you talking about? I haven't heard anything from you. I came here to do some business.”
“Of course you did! You had that idea all on your own. Free will and all that!” said Olga, still snickering at me. The urge to unleash my lightning returned to me. What do I have to do to get a little respect?
“Well, ready to pay back that favor you owe?” she asked. I opened my mouth to explain my situation, but she cut me off. “Just kidding! Doesn't matter. Right this way, Jamil!”
As much as I was coming to dislike this bossy little creature, she was the one I had come here to talk to, so I decided I may as well play along for now. She led me to a tangle of bushes near the pit. She pulled aside a panel that had been immaculately camouflaged to match the surrounding turf. Underneath, a tunnel dropped at an angle into the darkness. Olga produced a tiny lantern from within her cloak and lit it with a tiny match.
“Watch your head, and don't say a word to anyone while you're down here.” she said as she descended the sandy slope. Hoping I didn't come to regret it, I followed.
The tunnel was so small I nearly had to crawl to manage my way through. Olga's light barely allowed me to to see her, let alone anything else. I considered pulling out a wand I had devised the day before. It produced an electric arc that was slow and weak, providing just enough light to read by. I would use that as a back-up, in case Olga decided to abandon me in the darkness.
The tunnel ended in a larger cavern, just big enough for me to walk upright without cracking my head against anything. There were oil lamps hanging from the ceiling on chains, illuminating the cave just enough to remind me of late evening, when the sun has almost finished setting. There were dozens of other gnomes here. They all looked like men and woman in their eighties. I couldn't see a single young gnome anywhere. The walls were lined with little huts and stalls, from which tiny shopkeepers peddled their tiny wares. I was surprised that hardly any of them took any notice of me, despite the fact that I was easily four times the size of any of them.
“Don't fall behind!” said Olga. She was only about three meters from me, but that must seem like a long way at her scale. I followed her, doing my best not to accidentally trip over the other pedestrians.
Olga led me through several more tunnels and caverns. I began to get the impression of an enormous network of underground enclosures. I had to be at least half a kilometer underground now. I did my best to memorize the route, as I didn't really trust Olga to lead me out of here if I asked. At length, we arrived at a well-lit stall that had a selection of human-sized hats and clothing on display. The shopkeeper was richly dressed and wore a lot of jewelry, but otherwise looked almost exactly like Olga.
“Olga! Welcome!” greeted the shopkeeper warmly. Olga showed no sign of being pleased to see her, so I guessed that this was a commercial rather than a personal relationship.
“Here she is. Just make sure she is in presentable condition when I return. I owe you three.”
Three what? Three favors, I guessed. How else would you run a favor-based economy? The little shopkeeper beckoned me inside, but did not say a word to me. The interior of the shop was extremely spacious and well-lit by gnomish standards. It looked almost like a typical clothing boutique. The woman directed me to a stall at the back of the store. Over the next few hours, the damage that living alone in the forest had done to my appearance was gradually reversed. I was given a tub of water to bathe in (the shopkeeper didn't seem concerned with my privacy), soap, brushes, combs, oils, make-up, perfume, and finally a beautiful purple gown with golden-thread accents and a pair of sandals. The material felt like silk. By the time Olga returned, I looked like I was ready for some kind of formal event. Olga had also been getting dolled up. She was wearing what looked like a blue kimono. I wanted to ask her where in the world we were going, but she had warned me not to speak down here, and I knew better than to break a prohibition given by a fairy. Gnomes didn't look all that magical, but she said that she had summoned me here, and that seemed reasonable given how I had decided out of nowhere to come looking for her.
Olga grinned when she saw me, and gave a perfunctory nod of satisfaction to the shopkeeper. She led me out into the street.
“Alright, now the favor. I need you to carry me on your shoulders.”
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I goggled at her. I ran the words over in my mind for a moment to make sure I had heard them correctly.
“Are you out of your mind? I'm not doing that!” I hissed at her. I knew she had told me not to speak, but after Kaapo I was really getting tired of being pushed around.
“I warn you, favors are serious business among the Fae! This one won't harm you or cost anything permanent, so be content.” she hissed back.
“Why in the world would bring me all the down her just to carry you around?” I asked.
“It's no concern of yours why! Do it, or be an enemy of the Fae till you draw your last breath!”
Olga was definitely not as cute or friendly as I had first thought. She was a cruel and dangerous little creature. Still, I was certain some nasty fate would befall me if I defied her now, so I had to capitulate. Once again, I fantasized about roasting her alive as I bent down and allowed her to climb up on my shoulders.
Olga maneuvered me through the streets of the underground city by turning my head left or right, as though I were a horse. As we progressed, I noticed that the fancy clothes we were wearing became progressively less out of place. The streets became more well-lit, and the gnomes started to look wealthier. This part of town had an almost carnival-like atmosphere. Strangest of all, I began to to see other humans among the crowds. Some walked alone, but most had a gnome riding them. Their faces were calm, but bored-looking. I wondered how many of them were here for the same reasons that I was. I wondered how many of them had been doing this nonsense for years, or even their entire lives. I wondered how long I would be doing it.
Olga seemed to be enjoying herself entirely too much. She bought little pastries, candies, and cups of wine from street vendors, telling each that she owed them one, or occasionally, that they owed her one less. I still had no idea what a standard favor was worth in this bizarre system. It didn't seem like a reasonable basis for commerce, but maybe that's just because I'm not a gnome.
The day stretched on. Olga always had more places to go and people to see. I began to observe how other gnomes treated her as they greeted us. The level of respect, maybe even deference, might have been mistaken for simple politeness. But the way the gnomes milling about at my feet acted didn't make me think of them as generally polite. It was more that they saw Olga, riding high above them, as a figure of wealth and prominence.
That was what this whole charade was about. I was being used as a status symbol, like a Porsche or a Rolex. That was why I had been taken to be cleaned and dressed up first. Olga, a gnome who normally eked out a living hunting and foraging, was getting a taste of the high life at my expense.
Well, my feet started to hurt. In the middle of the street, I came to halt. Olga pressed on the back of my head, but I held it stiff. If she wanted to ride longer, she would have to put in another quarter.
“Move, damn you, move!” she whispered to me. I stood in silence and glanced around the room. People were watching. And why shouldn't they? You don't see a shift in power dynamics like this every day.
“Damn you! I'll owe you a favor!”she hissed. A victory, but not enough of one. She had eaten three favors while she had been riding me. There were quizzical expressions among the crowd now. I said nothing, and let my silence speak for me. Prices are rising, don't delay.
“Three! Three favors I'll owe! She spat the words out as though they burned her tongue. Smiling to myself, I strolled forward as though nothing had happened.
The night continued just as it had. My feet were much sorer by the time we returned to the human clothes-shop. Olga had had a marvelous night out, and was more than a little inebriated. For my part, as long as I was being paid properly, I didn't mind giving Olga a good value in return. She and I would never be friends, but as a business partner she was not too objectionable. As soon as the rich gown I had been wearing was returned and I was back in my filthy and threadbare slacks and t-shirt, I spoke to Olga about the favors she now owed me.
“Not now! Can't you see I'm in my cups? Whatever you want can wait until tomorrow.” she complained.
“I don't think so. You'll just try to wriggle out of it if I let you out of sight.”
“How dare you accuse me of that! You've seen how we gnomes do business tonight. Trying to avoid repaying a favor is practically a death sentence around here. You'll have what you desire, you may be certain of that, although I will not forget the trick you played on me.”
“What kind way of doing business is this? I've seen you give people favors for things that vary wildly in value. How am supposed to know what your favors are even worth, or how much I should be willing to do for one?”
Olga gave me a sinister-looking half-smile. “If you want me to explain it all to you, that would be me doing you a favor.”
That was a steep price, considering that she wanted to use me as a personal conveyance for one favor. Still, this gnome colony could be a really important resource to me, but only if I understood all their rules.
“Alright. As long as you answer my questions and leave nothing out, I'll consider the favor done.”
“Fine then. Listen up. Fae society doesn't function like human society at all. We have none of the things that naturally bind humans together. We have no friendships, no families, no gods. We have only our laws, which are written into our very blood, so that we cannot choose to forget them or ignore them. The most essential of these laws is that a Fae must repay whatever is done to us by another being, whether good or bad. Every offense must be punished, every kindness repayed. You, human, may forget a favor you owe to me, or to anyone else. You may decide that I did the favor in bad faith, or that what I offered was less than what you offered. I cannot. The magnitude of the favor is negotiated between the two parties, each and every time a favor is done. Value cannot truly be measured, you see. Teaching you about the plants and creatures of the wood cost me only a short time, but can you measure the value of not starving and not being eaten? Of course not. As for tonight, only you know what repaying me has cost you, and only I know what joy and power it gave me. Well, my favors are not worthless, as you have seen, and yours are not either, though I may have made different plans had I known what you would demand. Thus, you have some idea now of what the favors that pass between us are worth. The favor I owe to the gnome who sold me a honey cake tonight is a matter between the two of us. I will repay it, or die trying. I cannot choose otherwise. I cannot forget what I owe, nor what is owed to me, anymore than I can pluck the moon out of the sky. Do you understand?”
I nodded, but I still had questions. “What would have happened, had I refused to do as you asked?”
“I would have asked you do something else.” she answered, as if this were a perfectly acceptable thing to say.
“What! You told me I would be an enemy to all the gnomes if I refused! That was just a lie?”
Olga shrugged “I told you that so you would agree to do what I wanted. We are bound to Gratitude and Vengeance, not Honesty.”
“What if I refused to do anything that you asked of me? What if you asked me a hundred times, and I always refused?”
Olga gave me that creepy smile again. “Vengeance.” She said, and let the word hang in the air. “Any other questions?”
I tried to think of some other way this system might be abused, by me or against me. “What if I am not satisfied with the favor you have done?”
“Then you wouldn't want any more favors from me, and you would tell others of my failing. If I gained a reputation for unsatisfying work, no one would do anything for me. I would be destitute, then.” replied Olga.
“It still sounds like some kind of currency would be easier.” I mused.
“Bah! There are Fae who could drop a handful of pig-shit into your hand and tell you it was gold, and you would believe them. There are Fae who can smell gold at fifty paces, and can walk right in and take it, through every lock and bar you can imagine. Obligation is the one thing that we can't get around.”
I was silent as I considered this. Clearly, doing business with these people was not going to be easy, or safe. I would have to keep a close watch.
“I take from your silence that you have no more questions. Are you satisfied with my service?”
“One last thing. Was it true what you said about summoning me?”
“Yes.” she said. There was a long pause.
“How does one go about doing that?”
“You said, “One last thing”. If you want me to answer that question, that would be another favor.” she said.
I frowned at her. I was really curious to see if there was a way for me to summon her, but I had other plans for my remaining favors. That would have to wait.
“Another time, perhaps. What I need now is supplies. Winter is on the way, and I have almost none of what I'll need to survive. I want decent winter clothing to last me until spring.”
Olga nodded, clearly resentful of the price but too tired and drunk to argue. She took me to another shop where I was able to purchase a heavy wool coat, thick, warm trousers, and sturdy leather boots with wool socks. My last favor netted me a small steel knife, a leather backpack (I was glad to be rid of my pathetic-looking satchel) and a shallow iron pan. I was surprised that there was no need to use a favor for each of these separately.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked, as we left the little shop.
“Absolutely. I shall be much better off with these. Thank you.”
“What are those little balls you had in your satchel?” she asked.
“I could tell you, but that would be doing you a favor.” I answered, smiling.
“Oh, I see how it is. Tell me, do you happen to know how to get out of the caves from here? Because if not, I'd be doing you a favor by escorting you out!”
I had actually forgotten how I came in. I even thought about it earlier, but we had traveled around so much, it had slipped from my mind. If I had only scratched my symbol somewhere before I came down...
“Alright, I'll tell you for a favor.”
As Olga showed me the way back to the surface, I explained the details of my grenades to her. As much as I felt like like concealing my powers, it was nice to be able to talk about the work I had been doing recently. I was quite proud of my little grenades, even if they only carried about half the charge that I could throw at a time on my own. Olga listened to me as I explained the function of each sigil, and how it could be used to stun whoever it was thrown at. I knew I could create something more powerful with more experience and better materials, of course. Olga didn't seem all that impressed, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me. She was probably quite accustomed to magic.
“An interesting little toy, but I can think of quite a few other things that would work better for throwing at an enemy. Still, keep at it. You may come up with something I would want if you work at it.”
She waved goodbye to me, and I camped in the field again that night. Even without my shelter, it was still the warmest night I had yet spent since that night at the Drunken Jackass, and I didn't even have to hear Kaapo toss and turn all night.
The next morning, I finished off my dried supplies for breakfast, and got to work on yet another shelter, this one a short walk from the tiny gnome bridge. I might return to my old camp to use my kiln, but otherwise there was little there that justified the walk. The gnome colony was simply a more valuable resource. Now that I had a knife, construction was much quicker and easier, and a nearby growth of ivy provided plenty of binding material. This time, I had a knife, which is a massive time-saver. An axe and a saw would have been even better, although I don't really have the upper body strength to build a log cabin. This was going to be my winter home, however, so a sturdy frame of thick branches reinforced with ropes of vine was called for. I used several trees that grew close together as supports, then ran my ivy-ropes between them to support the roof. I took a break to forage in the woods nearby, and determined that as long as I could be content with salad, I needn't fear hunger for some time. There was a small group of raccoons living near the river, but decided to let them be. If memory served, raccoons were even less choosy about their food than pigs.
As I piled more dry brush on my shelter, I felt an odd twinge, like someone walking over my grave. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. When I closed my eyes, I noticed that one of the barely-perceptible divots in my consciousness had disappeared. The marker at the garden and the one at my old camp were still there, but the first one I had made, the one at Kaapo's place (which he stole from me) was gone. Had it simply worn out? I had no idea if that form of magic had any kind of limited duration, although most things do. Maybe Kaapo had seen it and destroyed it out of spite. It hardly mattered. I was never going back there.
With the evening free, I embarked on my most ambitious magical experiment yet. I found a fallen cedar branch that was very nearly straight, or could be with judicious widdling. I spent that evening carefully carving the wood into a sturdy walking staff. I didn't actually finish it until late the next day. Like the sigils, I wanted the head of the staff to look cool, so I tried my best to carve an anatomically correct human heart. I wasn't quite sure if looking cool mattered to the magic, but my intuition told me that if it mattered to me, it mattered to my power. Once the last sigil was in place (I had to devise a few new ones just for the purpose), I left my shelter with great trepidation to try it out.
There were three separate columns of sigils running up the length of the staff. These designated three distinct functions that the staff could channel my lightning through, with separate activation words for each. The first, Glow, would cause the end of the staff to emit a soft glow, ideal for getting around in caves. The second, Burst, was simply a re-working of the wand I had used to destroy that swarm of bees. The last setting was only one I was worried about, and therefore the one I absolutely had to test. I gave it a fifty-fifty shot that the staff would blow apart in my hands as soon as I activated it, rendering all my hours of work worthless. Still, better to find out now than in a serious battle.
I found a boulder that should be adequately grounded for a proper test. I pointed the carving of the heart at it, and spoke my chosen word of power.
“Shatter!”
I was on the ground instantly. It took a few seconds for my vision to return, and even longer for the ringing to leave my ears. I struggled my way to my feet. Every bit of me felt as heavy as lead. I was relieved to find that my staff was still intact; not even singed. Despite that, I was inclined to consider the experiment a failure. My own weapon had left me on the ground, blind, and so exhausted I could hardly stand. The boulder had a chunk the size of a fist missing, as well as a large scorch-mark, but such a spell still had very limited combat utility. If I used it, the battle would be over, and probably not in my favor. I stumbled home to recover. Whatever its other shortcomings, my staff was a brilliant thing to lean on as I walked.
I was nearly home when four gnomes appeared out of the underbrush all around me. I wondered briefly if gnomes could actually turn themselves invisible, or if they were just very good at sneaking. Two small crossbows and a selection of knives were pointed in my direction. Even if I hadn't been exhausted from my failed experiment, I doubt I could have done anything against so many in such a short time.
“Alright, you have me. What do you want?” I asked in Vulgar Fae. The little men glanced at each other. I could get through this.
“Did you cause that explosion just now?” the gnome who I assumed to be the leader asked.
“Not intentionally.” I answered. I managed to maintain control of my voice, despite my heart pounding out of control.
“That was a yes.” said the lead gnome. “How did you do that?”
“Magic.” now that I was carrying a staff carved with mystic sigils, there wasn't much point in concealing this fact. It still felt weird to say though.
“You're a sorceress?” he asked. I nodded. The term technically applies.
“What are you doing in our lands?” he asked.
“I was thrown out of Rocky Shore last week. I settled here to make trade with your people more convenient. I can move further away, if you'd prefer.”
What followed was a lengthy interrogation. The gnomes seemed to accept my story, but they had many questions, and they asked them over and over. I was glad I hadn't attempted to lie to them, it was hard enough to keep the truth straight under such a barrage. They finally agreed to let me go, after I had agreed to a set of conditions. First, I was to perform one favor each week to the gnome community. Even after Olga's explanation, that system seemed weird and arbitrary, but I figured that as long as I was generally beneficial, they would tolerate my presence. I was also forbidden from performing any additional dangerous experiments while within a day's journey of gnome territory. I interpreted this one into “Don't do anything to make trouble or call attention to yourself” which is actually the rule in most communities.
Once the gnomes (I suppose they had to be the local equivalent of police) had left, I sat down on a log and let my breathing returned to normal. The fact that they had been able to appear right beside me like that meant they could kill me any time they felt like it, and they had wanted me to know that. The fact they had been too tired from my experiment to put up a fight, even if I had seen them coming, made it even more disconcerting. I had just been starting to feel like I was getting a feel for this game, and I was now seeing that I had barely started. I had to find a way to become more powerful, and what I was doing now wouldn't get me there fast enough.
I ate another scanty meal and turned in early. I was more depressed now than I had been the night Kaapo threw me out. It felt like everyone was getting the better of me lately.
It rained that night. I was glad to have a well-insulated home to sleep in. I fell asleep listening to soft hiss of rain against my thatch roof. I could smell the faint ozone in the night air. The wind ripped throw the forest, sending autumn leaves scurrying past. There was a crash of thunder in the distance. As I shivered in my simple bed of dry grass and moss, the thought “watch me get blamed for that” passed through my consciousness. The wind grew louder and louder and more thunder began to blast through the woods. I felt that at any moment, my fragile home might be whipped off of me and carried away by the storm.
Then it was. All at once, my shelter was gone, and I was out in the open. Horizontal rain drilled into me. The tree branches above me were tensed like bowstrings against the powerful wind. The lightning became more frequent, the thunder nearly deafened me. I realized, to my terror, that the wind and thunder were speaking to me.
“COWARD! WEAKLING! UNWORTHY VESSEL!”
The words came from every direction, my bones shook with them.
“YOU THINK YOURSELF WORTHY TO HOLD THE LIGHTNING IN YOUR HAND! TO CALL THE MIGHTY STORM TO DO YOUR BIDDING! YOU ARE A SNIVELING WRETCH!”
I tried to speak. I shouted as loudly as I could, but my words were carried away in the wind. I couldn't hear the sound of my own voice. In the sky, the gray clouds were circling me like a hurricane.
“WHO FEARS YOUR WRATH? WHO TREMBLES AT YOUR APPROACH! WHO BENDS THEIR KNEE TO YOUR WORDS! THEY MOCK AND OFFEND YOU, AND YOU DO NOTHING!
The lightning struck again, and this time, in the illuminating flash I saw the sky turn two eyes of white-hot rage at me. The face filled the heavens from horizon to horizon.
And then I was awake. The gentle rain battered against my thatch roof.