-=Shiona POV=-

By now the dryad had already left, but before she did we reached an agreement:

Once every few days, maybe once every week, she would find us using her fancy dryad/plant magic and give us a bunch of foodstuffs, and if we ever think we have more than we’ll ever use then we can just ask her to slow down at that time.

‘Thank god I asked Cy to help me with this earlier.’

I walked over to the chair the dryad had sat on and picked up the cloth which laid on top of it, under the cloth was an indentation in the wood of the chair.

Half the indentation was filled with a small magic crystal which had been turned into an energy battery, the other half of the indentation was filled by another crystal, this crystal however was attached to the cloth I just picked up and thus came with it out of the indentation.

The crystal, and by extension the cloth it had been magically attached to, had been turned into a simple telepathy magic item, and thanks to it being in contact with an energy battery it didn’t even need to be fueled, instead it worked automatically whenever someone touched it.

Basically, if you were in contact with this cloth and battery combo everyone around you would hear every word you think.

Things had mostly been going according to plan during the dryads visit, the cloth did what it needed to while neither I or Plush let it show on our faces that we heard what the dryad was thinking, however the dryads hamburger frenzy was a bit unexpected, to be honest it wasn’t a part of the plan at all.

Things would have worked out anyways, I would have gotten the dryad to give us the foodstuffs we want with very little chance of her crossing our back, however thanks to Plush deciding to have an evening snack we ended up not just swaying the dryads actions but also the thoughts and emotions behind them.

[We’ll have to streamline the design before we can put it into further practical use, maybe a two layered glove that’s powered by the person wearing it but affects whoever touches the outside of it?] Said Cy through a machine which laid on the table.

Cy was still inside the book but could communicate with us outside through this machine.

“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be kind of conspicuous if you had to touch them all the time? Maybe making it into a post it note and putting it on their back would work…” I say, my words trailing off at the end.

*yawn* “That’s great and all,-” Says Plush. “-but d’you guys think we could go to sleep soon?”

“Ah.” I exclaim stupidly.

To be fair, this past month and a half we’d gotten used to going asleep at sundown, right now however it had already been a few hours since it got dark.

“Well, sorry but do you think you could go to bed before me, I kinda got myself all worked up with all this. I think I’d have to go for an evening stroll to calm down.” I respond to Plush while scratching the back of my head.

“Okay, I’d like to come along but I think I’d fall asleep in the middle if I did.”

“Really? I thought you didn’t get tired though?”

“Oh yeah, that’s weird… I think I may just have picked it up as a habit actually…”

“What? It’s become a habit to get tired? How?”

“I, I don’t know? I’ve still only been in this body for a month and a half you know? I still don’t know everything it can do.”

I shrug my shoulder.

“Fair enough, I’ll see you later then, or in case you fall asleep before I get back: Good night, sweet dreams.”

“Good night Shiona.”

After that Plush lays down on the bed and curls up in the blankets while I exit the room through the door and leave the inn.

I bring Cy’s talk-box with me, that way we can discus a bunch of things while walking around the town in the chilly nighttime air.

“So regarding teleportation magic, any idea how to use it?”

[I think so, in fact it was one of the first spells I started trying to recreate after I first found out about this new form of magic that’s been invented.]

“Really? That’s great! How much progress have you made, and could you explain it to me?”

We walked through the founder’s square as Cy explained her ideas.

[... right now all that’s left is some sort of corner stone, or a central pillar if you will, something to keep the spell together.]

“Huh, so that’s pretty much as far as me and Plush got then.”

[It would seem so.]

“Well then what other spells have you been trying to recreate?”

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[Well-]

I then continue to walk around aimlessly while paying more attention to the conversation than to where I’m going.

I walk over a flat wooden bridge.

“Then about the encyclopedia spell you were thinking about, maybe you could have the interface work kind of like what Plush did with the truth-sight spell!?” I say excitedly, I’ve been in this other world for three lonely years yet only now am I able to do what I’de been dreaming of for years in my past life.

[That could have worked, if only the encyclopedia spell wouldn’t be a five circle spell...]

“Well what about this then, as far as I could gather the spells are basically just circles arranged in a pattern and attached to each other by strings, yeah?”

[Yes, so then your plan is…?] Asks Cy, almost letting me hear her excitement through the mechanical voice.

“But the circles aren’t attached to each other in a loop right? They’re more like a twisted string?”

[How do you mean?]

“I mean, for a four circle magic it’s not a square with a circle in each corner, instead it’s like a horseshoe? Like, it’s a square without one of it’s sides.”

[Yeah?]

“Then can’t you just fold it in on itself?”

[What?] Cy asks, clearly confused.

“Like,-” I pluck one of my feathers. “-imagine that this is a two circle spell, like there’s a circle on each end of the feather.”

[Okay...]

I hold the feather in front of a small black dot on Cy’s talk-box, a camera if you will, and then-

[!]

-I fold the feather in half and the talk-box lets out a surprised sound.

[That’s-]

“And then you just fold it like this so that all the circles overlap!” I continue to explain.

[This could work! But where did you get this idea from!?]

“You know... places…”

[I’m going to have to do some practice with this…]

“Glad I could help Cy!”

All this talk about magic really only served to get me even more riled up, but now that we’d gotten most of it sorted out I came back to my senses.

[By the way-]

“Hm?”

[Where are you even?]

“?”

I look around and see that the surroundings look nothing like what they did before.

Right now it looked like I was walking up a spiral staircase in a tower made of stone.

“How the fuck did I get here!?”

I look out an opening in the towers wall.

“I’m… I’m in the castle...? I’m in the castle!?”

I take a deep breath.

“What the fuck!” I shout as I throw my wings into the air.

“How the fuck did I walk in here without realizing it!? And shouldn’t there be guards who stop trespassers!?”

[For someone who thinks so much you sure are thoughtless.]

“Fuck you! … But what now?”

[What do you mean?]

“This could be my only chance to see what’s inside the castle you know?”

[... Are you absolutely certain you didn’t walk here on purpose?]

“...”

[...]

“...”

[Curiosity killed the cat Shiona.]

“Yes but satisfaction brought it back Cy.”

After saying that I resume ascending the tower.

[Are you really sure about this?] Asks Cy worriedly.

“Yeah yeah, I’m just going to comb through the castle and see every single nook and cranny, who know, they might have some really sweet stuff hidden away in some secret passages or rooms that no one knows about, and if no one knows about it then no one will miss it right?”

[And how, pray tell, are you so sure that you’ll even be able to find them, or rather, how do you even know that they have any hidden passageways?]

“You know, reasons.”

[Hah...]

“You know that little text to speech box is becoming better and better at sounding like an actual person. And anyways, if we’re in a castle we’ve never been in before then isn’t it the perfect time to test out that other spell you’ve been working on?”

[The encyclopedia one?]

“No, the sonar one, I’m no good at spells but didn’t you say that you put a thingy in the talk-box to let you use spells yourself?”

[... I guess the practice opportunity makes it worth a shot.]

One of the sides of the box, the same side that had the little camera, started glowing and a blue circle appeared on the side.

From that circle came a blue spell circle.

After that another circle appeared at almost the same place as the previous, though a bit further out.

a few more circles appeared, by now it looked more like a glowing blue cylinder rather than a series of circles, showing how truly complicated this spell must be.

[This spell-bending thing really is working, and yeah, surprisingly there really are some hidden pathways and concealed entrances.]

“I told you so! Now let’s see…”

The sonar spell worked like the thruthsight spell, hold the spell circles in front of your eyes and you see a translucent white three-dimensional map of the near vicinity.

Normally the sonar would have the range of a large sphere, however that sphere would not have been able to encase the entire castle so Cy helped by throwing in another spell circle to re-shape the range.

Since the camera on the talk-box was on the same side as the spell she was able to see that map, so in order for me to see the map as well I just look in from the other side.

“Hey, what’s those blue figures? And there’s a green and red one too, is the green an ally and the red an enemy?”

[What? Why would that be the case? No, the green means they’re healthy, red means severely injured and the blue means asleep.]

“Actually that’s probably better than what I thought, are there any other colors?”

[Yes, a green person turns yellow and orange before turning red, as to judge how close they are to dying, and then… I don’t know, maybe I’ll add more later.]

“Oh! What about this place? A big room that’s not attached to any corridors, there’s so much stuff in it that I can’t tell what’s what in there.”

[Maybe, but what if it’s all just a bunch of trash? And also I’m surprised you didn’t just start rushing off to the injured person.]

“What do you mean, of course I’m heading towards that place first, I’ve been running while you were looking at the map you know?”

[...]

Apparently Cy was too busy looking at the map of the castle to realize that we were moving rapidly towards the green and red marke people.

I jump into the empty center of the tower and fly to the top instead of walking up the stairs, I then quickly arrive at a door at the top of the tower.