Soral did not sleep at all that night. He could care less about healthy rest and he had no time for dealing with nightmares. He explored the area surrounding Ruena’s cottage before finally deciding that his tree was the best place to disguise his safe place. As a test, he found a hill a ways away from anything that looked lived in or important and tried shaping a cave into it with magic.

His first attempt failed miserably. The whole thing collapsed like a half baked cake. Good thing he hadn’t just gone for it by his tree. He tried to fix the hill instead, leaving it naturally hollow but now it looked too triangular. Kind of like a pyramid.

Instead of trying to fix this hill again Soral tried his hand at illusion magic. He tried to remember what the hill looked like before he got to it but he drew a total blank. What did hills look like again?

Something approached him, hidden within the tall grass and Soral readied himself, just in case. That something turned out to be Jazz. The kitten still looked a bit sleepy, but happy to see him. He promptly climbed Soral’s newly created pyramid and curled up at the tip of it.

There went his hill remodeling. He climbed the pyramid and sat next to the furball. It was steep and kind of slippery. He definitely had to fix this at some point. Then again, maybe he’d been doing this all wrong. He had been approaching it from the bottom, but what if he approached it from the top?

==========

Ruena awoke the next morning to the same omelet from the day before, but about half the size. Soral was rummaging through the clothes they had purchased earlier and muttering something about pockets. Was this some thief thing she needed to worry about?

When had he even woken up?

“Good morning,” she greeting, “Why are you looking for pockets?”

Soral jumped a little. “Oh, um… Well… I had this idea?” he began. He didn’t seem to know how best to explain and he was definitely hiding something.

“What kind of idea?” Ruena pressed.

“There was this bag,” Soral continued, “It was really cool. It held all sorts of things. I was going to try to make one but bags are kind of annoying.”

Bags were annoying? “How are they annoying?” Ruena couldn’t help herself but ask.

“Easy to lose or misplace,” he said, “They are portable but an obvious target for thieves.”

“So you decided on pockets?” she asked, “Minor thieves are called pickpockets for a reason.”

“But they don’t steal the pocket,” Soral explained, “Just what’s inside. If they can’t access anything in the pocket, it’s fine.”

Couldn’t access? Just what in the world was he trying to make? It sounded like pretty advanced magic. Had he always been capable of that?

“Sibel Toll said I would be able to do it so I’m trying my best,” Soral added, answering he unasked questions.

So it was prompted.

“I could try to help,” Ruena decided, “I can’t use magic but I can help brainstorm and find… pockets.”

The whole pocket idea was still a bit weird for her but he seemed set on it so she decided to play along. She hadn’t seen Soral this excited since they met and the premise seemed innocent enough.

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They sorted through the clothes. Some they had purchased and some Soral had from before. Jazz had decided to sleep on the pile somewhere in the middle making things a bit more complicated.

“How about this?” she suggested, holding up a vest. It was a simply black vest with a chest pocket and two pockets on either side. The vest had a single button, a bit on the large side, in the center to hold it closed.

Soral took the vest from her and examined it. He felt the various pockets for their depth and nodded. “It’ll do.”

“I figured you could wear it more often since its a vest,” Ruena told him, feeling some need to explain her thoughts to him, “You’ll still need to wash it every now and then so you can’t wear it all the time.”

“I’ll have to work on a magic to self wash clothes or make them not get dirty next,” Soral decided, “but yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The pockets aren’t the best but we don’t have enough money to buy more and I can’t just acquire one.”

‘Acquire’ sounded a whole lot like ‘steal’ in that sentence but Ruena decided to ignore it. He said he wasn’t going to anyway.

“Now what?” Ruena asked.

“Now I need to figure out how to attach the magic to the pocket, and which one,” Soral told her.

“You already created the magic?” Ruena realized, “When?”

Soral looked away. “Last night?”

“When did you even go to sleep?”

There was no answer.

“Don’t tell me, Soral did you not sleep?”

“I don’t feel tired,” Soral defended.

To be honest, he didn’t look tired either. It was hard to believe he had stayed up the whole night. Especially if he had spent that time using magic. Wasn’t magic supposed to be draining?

Soral wandered over to the kitchen as she thought this and started poking around before grabbing something to munch on. Their cupboards looked oddly bare. She couldn’t complain since Soral had earned all the money to purchase those things, but did he always eat this much?

Hold on, where had he even gotten those mushrooms from? He took a large bite of a warty purple cap before she could say a word. He seemed fine? And then he got right back to his experiments.

Ruena left him to it after a while, and decided to report this odd behavior to her benefactor. Just in case.

“So he has been enchanting pockets and eating mushrooms,” Densooth repeated in a rough summary of events, “He likely developed some sort of poison immunity surviving on his own. As for the pockets, watch how it turns out. If he succeeds be sure to encourage him. Magic creation is exactly the path we want him to follow.”

“Right,” Ruena agreed.

Creating magic sounded like something far above what Ruena had imagined would come of this. Soral had mentioned creating magic too, though.

Suddenly she heard a joyful shout from the other room. She turned the communication off just in time for Soral to throw her door open.

“I did it!” he exclaimed, proudly presenting her with the vest, “I can put things in and and take them out but the pockets seem empty, right? You try it.”

Ruena carefully took the vest and reached into the pocket. It felt every bit like an ordinary pocket. She looked up at Soral, confused, but he just looked smug.

“The security works too! I made it so I am the only one who can access it. Cool, right?” he bragged.

“It sounds complicated,” Ruena told him, “But could you maybe make it so I could access it too, for emergencies.”

Soral paused and deliberated. “Alright. It shouldn’t be too hard. But only for emergencies. And only if you or I am wearing it.”

Those sounded like highly specific conditions, but Ruena was no magic expert so she left him to it.

Jazz had stopped in the doorway, too lazy to follow Soral all the way in or out. She noticed a crumb stuck on his chin. So Soral hadn’t been the only one emptying the cupboards.

==========

Soral had purposely hidden from Ruena how his pocket worked, but she didn’t seem too suspicious. It made him feel more comfortable to have a secret stash nearby that only he could touch.

Now he just had to figure out how to handle her emergency access. Soral went out to his tree, double checked she was not following, then slipped inside the hidden space he had created below. It was simple, just a hole about the size and shape of a small storage room with some shelving carved into the walls.

He had already filled most of those shelves with things he considered his. His clothing, everything he brought with him in his satchel, and some treasures he retrieved from old bases and hideouts with the convenient use of portal magic.

Using the pocket portal to summon items had been difficult, but once he figured it out he realized it had far more applications than just a convenient storage tool. As long as he knew where something was, he could retrieve it from his pocket.

Soral smiled as he imagined the shocked expressions on the faces of anyone around as the items he retrieved, just vanished. He wasn’t stealing, though. Just taking what was his, so Ruena shouldn’t be too upset about it. He should probably hide that function from SIbel Toll as well.

After looking around a bit Soral decided to make a table in the center of the room for important emergency items. He would allow Ruena to access what was on the table without having to worry about her finding anything… uncomfortable. It would also be easier for her to activate the mental part of the magic if she only had access to a smaller space.

After setting up the magic, Soral poked around to see if he had anything to fill the table. He scrounged up some meager medical supplies, some emergency rations he had stashed. Unfortunately, those emergency rations were those hard biscuits and jerky Ruena had before he arrived. He hadn’t had the heart to throw food, even an abomination of food, out.

Soral couldn’t think of any emergency supplies other than food or medicine so he placed a small pile of money just to make a nice triangle on the table. That would do. Now all he had left was to teach Ruena how to use the pocket.