The road heading north from Fehndarlai ran near the river and through farms on either side. Keolah had to wonder just how humans grew their food if there weren’t many among them who used magic. Did their Earth Mages know how to cover large areas like this and go from farm to farm, ensuring the plants were healthy and the soil rich?
“What are those weird machines out in the fields?” Hawthorne asked.
Delven chuckled. “Do you want me to spend this whole trip discussing agricultural technology, or teaching you how to communicate in the common tongue?”
“Right, the latter, I guess,” Hawthorne said. “But you could at least summarize.”
“In summary, humans use machines to help them farm,” Delven said. “They don’t use as much magic as elves, so they build devices to do stuff you’d probably use magic for.”
“Oh, okay,” Hawthorne said.
After spending several days traveling and briefly staying in a few smaller villages along the river, they entered forest again as the road turned away from the river.
“Be sure to stick to the road in this part of the country,” Delven said. “And if we must leave the road, we’ll be making camp south of the road. Don’t set even one foot north.”
“Why?” Hawthorne wondered.
Delven pointed to the woods on their right hand side. The forest looked very odd compared to the jungle they’d traveled through before, twisting and turning in on itself. A stone fence enchanted with what looked to be wards lined that side of the road, and beyond it, strange curls of mana wafted through the forest.
“It’s called the Witchwood,” Delven said. “People who go in there tend not to come back out, or emerge confused at best, gibbering madly about strange visions at worst.”
“Huh.”
Hawthorne continued to stare off at it as they walked. The road they were traveling was fairly smooth and paved nicely enough for the horse-drawn carriages that had regularly passed them. No villages dotted this stretch of road, although the campsite they stopped at for the night seemed to be relatively regularly frequented by travelers even if there were no permanent buildings.
“So, what’s in the Witchwood?” Hawthorne asked as they were setting up camp.
“Trees, I’d imagine,” Delven said. “Weird, magic trees or something. I’m not the expert on magic here.”
“I’d hardly call myself an expert, either,” Keolah said. “But I can readily tell there’s something odd there. There’s mana emanating from there.”
“What do you mean?” Hawthorne asked.
“I can see these waves of mana—”
“Wait a minute,” Hawthorne said. “I thought you were a Fire Mage?”
“Technically I’m an Earth Mage,” Keolah said. “My aura is green.”
“But you can see magic,” Hawthorne said. “Only Seekers can see magic.”
Keolah stared at her. “What? No. I can clearly see every bit of magic you’ve done. I can see your aura is cyan, Delven’s is amber, Zendellor’s is red. I can see the enchantments on the stone fence.”
“There’s enchantments on the fence?” Delven asked.
Keolah nodded. “Wards. Presumably to protect the road against whatever is coming out of the Witchwood.”
“But if you can see auras, you must be a Seeker, not an Earth Mage,” Hawthorne said.
“Nonsense,” Keolah said. “Seekers have a more yellow-green aura. Mine is definitely the dark green of Earth Magic.”
Hawthorne scoffed. “Forget your damned aura. Have you ever been trained to see auras?”
“Well, no,” Keolah said.
“So what magic can you use instinctively without having any training in it?” Hawthorne pressed.
“Can’t you see mana?” Keolah asked.
“Abyss no,” Hawthorne said.
“How can you even use magic without being able to see what your mana is doing?” Keolah wondered.
“I don’t know, I just do,” Hawthorne said. “My wards protect me even if I’m not thinking about it. My Wind Magic helps me lift heavy things and fall without hurting myself. Nobody had to train me in those things, and I picked up a few other things on my own.”
“Yes, your aura is the correct color for Security Magic, but Wind Magic is a slightly different shade of blue-green,” Keolah said.
“Argh, what does it matter?” Hawthorne grumbled. “I know what I do. And you can apparently see magic. Could you use Earth Magic on your own, or did someone have to teach me?”
“Someone taught me,” Keolah said. “I guess it never really occurred to me that other people couldn’t see mana.”
“Right then,” Hawthorne said. “I hereby officially or whatever dub you a Seeker. I don’t give a twig what color your aura is. You’re obviously doing Seeking without training. And what about that Fire Magic?”
“I learned it, because I like fire and it’s very convenient,” Keolah said.
Delven cleared his throat. “Keolah, with your newly officially dubbed Seeker expertise, what do you see in the Witchwood?”
“Colorless mana,” Keolah said.
“Is that significant?” Delven asked.
“It means it’s mana no one has used,” Keolah said. “If it were an actual enchantment, it would be the color of the magical signature of the person who cast it. The warding on the fence, for instance, is cyan, since a Warder probably cast it.”
“A Warder, or someone who knew how to cast wards and whose aura just happened to be cyan?” Hawthorne put in.
“Does it matter?” Keolah shrugged. “At any rate, it is significant that there’s colorless mana in there.”
“What do you mean by ‘colorless’?” Hawthorne asked. “What is it, like, gray?”
“No,” Keolah said. “Even gray is a color. I can’t explain it.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” Hawthorne said. “So this mana is just, like, there? Not being used for anything?”
“It means the forest is itself magical, not that someone cast an enchantment over it,” Keolah said. “It’s a natural phenomenon, not a spell.”
“Oh, okay,” Hawthorne said.
“Is that normal?” Delven wondered.
“I’ve only ever seen colorless mana in one place before,” Keolah said. “There’s a node in western Rascalanse. A mana spring, in effect. It’s in a cave with a glowing pool in the middle. Raw mana wells up out of this pool. You can do stronger magic at a node, since there’s more mana available.”
“So this forest is a ‘node’?” Delven asked.
Keolah nodded. “Looks like it.”
“Guess that would explain why it’s so weird,” Delven said. “Did anything strange happen in that cave you mentioned?”
“Aside from it glowing for no apparent reason?” Keolah said. “Sometimes. I’d see things, or hear things. Whispers. Ghosts. Nothing substantial, though.”
“Either way, let’s best stay away from there,” Delven said.
“Agreed,” Keolah said. “We stick to the road and get to Scalyr in no time.”
Come morning, they broke camp and got back on the road. Hawthorne ran up to the wall and leaned over.
“Be careful there,” Keolah said. “The wards aren’t a solid thing. They’ll only keep magic out. You’ll pass right through them.”
“I just want to take a closer look,” Hawthorne said.
“Well, look from over here,” Keolah said. “I don’t know what a node that size might do, but it doesn’t sound good.”
“I’ll be fine.” Hawthorne hopped over the fence.
“Hawthorne!” Keolah ran up to the fence.
“I won’t go far,” Hawthorne said, heading into the forest.
“Damn it, Hawthorne, come back here!” Keolah called out.
Zendellor leapt over the fence and trotted after Hawthorne. Keolah sighed and jumped over as well, and Delven joined her after a moment.
“I guess going into the Witchwood is a thing we’re doing now,” Delven commented as he caught up with Keolah.
“Come on, let’s try not to lose sight of her,” Keolah said, then yelled, “Hawthorne, if you’re going to do this, at least wait for us!”
The trees warped disorientingly in front of them, the raw mana almost seeming alive. Keolah pressed on even after losing physical sight of them, the cyan and red colors of their auras visible even through the trees and foliage. But as they continued forward, the colorless mana in the air became stronger and denser, making it hard to trace even that.
“I’ve lost them,” Keolah finally admitted with a sigh, pausing to make sure Delven was still with her at least.
“Crap.” Delven looked back over his shoulder, then looked to her in unspoken question.
Keolah shook her head. “I can’t see the wall anymore, either.”
“Double crap,” Delven muttered. “Now what do we do?”
Keolah turned and headed further into the forest. “We find them.”
“It would probably be easier to find the wall again,” Delven said. “It’s a pretty big target. They’ll either come out eventually, somewhere, or they won’t. But there’s no way we’re going to be able to find a woman and a horse in the middle of the magical forest.”
“I’m not leaving them behind,” Keolah said. “You’re welcome to go back to try to find the wall if you want.”
Delven sighed. “No. I’m staying with you.”
Keolah nodded, and said, “Take my hand. Let’s not get separated, too.”
Delven grasped her hand and said, “I hope you have an idea.”
“I might,” Keolah said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Having her eyes shut didn’t affect how she saw auras. They were just as clearly visible through eyelids as they were through trees, walls, and solid rock. The only things that blocked them were certain kinds of wards and, apparently, excessive amounts of raw mana. But maybe she could do something about that latter.
Focusing deeply, she tried to suppress and filter out the ambient mana. While she wasn’t sure if she was successful on that account, she did think she spotted a trail of gleaming cyan mana winding off through the trees.
“Come on,” Keolah said, opening her eyes. “This way.”
There wasn’t any trace of red mana. Either Zendellor had gotten separated as well, or this was really just residue from Hawthorne’s own use of magic, probably her wards protecting her from thorns and branches. It was enough, though. Clenching tightly to Delven’s hand, she set off following the trail of bright mana through the forest.
A footstep here, a handprint there, a few strands wisping against a shrub, shimmering, effervescent. Keolah rushed after the ephemeral glow, chasing it even as it faded. If she lost sight of this trail as well as her friends themselves, she feared she might never be able to find them again.
She tripped and stumbled on a protruding root, and only Delven’s hands kept her from going down hard.
“Sorry,” Keolah said, continuing. “My eyes are on the trail of mana Hawthorne left behind and not my own feet, apparently.”
“Watch the trail, I’ll watch your feet,” Delven said.
For what felt like hours, she pressed on through the forest, refusing to stop to rest. The mana prints were becoming stronger. She was catching up. There! She spotted a glimpse of part of two actual auras through the field of blank mana.
“I see them,” Keolah said. “Hawthorne! Hawthorne!”
The cyan and red auras paused, turned around, and headed toward them. Keolah breathed a sigh of relief as she came face-to-face with Hawthorne and Zendellor again. She released Delven’s hand and ran up to put her arms around Hawthorne.
“I was afraid I’d never see you again,” Keolah said, clutching her tightly.
Hawthorne tensed for a moment, then relaxed and hugged her back. “Yeah. Sorry I ran off like that. I should’ve at least waited for you.”
Keolah released her and looked around. She’d long since lost any idea of where they were. Raw mana waved slowly around them like wind in the leaves. Only now did she realize that none of these plants were native to the region and it was much colder here than it ought to be.
“So, what now?” Delven asked.
“We stick together, first off,” Keolah said. “Then… we try to find a way out.”
“We might be stuck in here a while,” Delven said.
“I have a canteen of endless water, so we don’t need to worry about that,” Keolah said. “And if our rations run out, I can fast-grow food plants if necessary.”
“Really?” Delven said. “Elves can do that?”
“Earth Mages can do that,” Keolah said. “It’s not good for the plants or the soil in the long run, though, so it’s really only good in emergencies and not a sustainable practice for farming. We’re hopefully not going to be in here long enough to make a substantial impact on the health of the forest.”
“I don’t know that I’d be too worried about the health of the forest, regardless,” Delven said. “This place is… very odd. I’m no Seeker, but even I can tell that.”
“It doesn’t quite feel real,” Hawthorne said.
Delven nodded. “I’ve been seeing things. Hearing things.”
“Oh, good,” Hawthorne said. “I mean, not good, but I’m glad it’s not just me. For a moment there I thought I was going mad.”
Delven chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry, it’s not just you.”
Keolah realized that it wasn’t just the high levels of raw mana that were causing her problems, but that on top of that, ghostly images teased at the edges of her vision. It was probably even worse for a Seeker — and she might as well admit to herself that she was actually a Seeker, even if she’d never really considered it before. This forest felt like she was one step in the real world, and one step inside a dream.
“Whatever we do, let’s stay close,” Keolah said. “No wandering off, not even to water the bushes.”
“We might as well get moving, then,” Hawthorne said.
Keolah nodded, picked a direction, and headed off that way. “Let’s go.”
“You have no idea where you’re going, either,” Hawthorne said.
Keolah didn’t answer. She wished she knew. In truth, she was more than a little worried. But at least she wasn’t alone. Her friends were with her, and she wasn’t going to let them out of her sight again.
Keolah drifted in dreams, and felt like the world was crumbling around her. They were just dreams and visions. The ground was solid at her feet, the trees stark, and the hands of her friends firm. Maybe she should make some potions to allow them to sleep without dreaming, but then she was afraid that something dangerous would actually show up in the night and they’d be too deep in a potion-induced sleep to wake and deal with it.
She tried to keep focus, and after a while, she thought she was actually getting used to it. One might even be able to live in a place like this. Had some of those who had gotten lost in this forest simply decided to stay here and build a home for themselves after realizing that they couldn’t find their way out? It wasn’t like the place was full of monsters or anything. The old imperial ruins had been more dangerous. There were animals, and she spotted their faint auras at times, heard their cries and movements. None of them seemed like they belonged here, either.
“So, did you see that?” Delven asked.
“See what?” Hawthorne asked. “Another ghost?”
“I don’t think they’re really ghosts, but no,” Delven said. “Some sort of small animal, climbing in the trees.” He pointed. “There it is again.”
A pointed, white face with a pink nose looked down at them from a limb overhead, gray-furred and with pink toes and a long, hairless tail.
“Some sort of animal,” Hawthorne said. “Never seen one of those before. Whatever it is.”
“Nor I,” Keolah said.
The mammal climbed further up into the tree and out of sight, and they didn’t see it again.
The group continued on. It started raining again, and Hawthorne lifted a hand for a moment to surround them in a shield of cyan mana that blocked it and kept them dry.
“That’s very convenient,” Delven said. “Why don’t I travel with elves more often?”
Keolah giggled. “You can stay with us as long as you like, as far as I’m concerned.”
A crack of thunder boomed around them, and a flash of lightning split the air.
“I think I’d definitely best stay with you,” Delven said, voice wavering.
“We should find shelter,” Keolah said.
“Don’t worry, my shield will hold,” Hawthorne assured her. “It’s not like there isn’t plenty of mana here.”
A sizzling burst of lightning split the tree directly in front of them.
“Shit!” Hawthorne jumped back. “Okay, we need to find shelter.”
Delven pointed. “I think I see something over that way.”
Keolah turned her gaze in that direction and blinked. There was something… very odd inside those rocks, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what. As they passed out of the trees, its general shape became apparent.
“Delven,” Keolah said. “That rock formation is shaped like a skull.”
“Oh, who cares what it’s shaped like,” Hawthorne said. “There’s a cave there. Let’s get inside.”
“In the interests of not getting struck by lightning or caught in a forest fire, I am going to forego my misgivings about walking down the gullet of a giant skull,” Keolah commented.
Hawthorne dispelled her rain barrier and hastily shielded the entrance to the cave. The four of them hurried inside, and headed as deep in as they dared go. Keolah started a campfire, Delven took the packs off of Zendellor, and they laid out his bedroll and put up their hammocks.
“On the upside, the weird skull-shaped cave is considerably lower than most of the trees around here,” Hawthorne said. “Hopefully it’s less likely to get hit by lightning. Don’t try hiding in a cave on a mountain during a thunderstorm, by the way. Actually, don’t be on a mountain during a thunderstorm if you can help it, period.”
“Speaking from experience there?” Delven asked.
“Possibly,” Hawthorne said, looking around shiftily. “Let’s just say I’m frequently glad I’m a Warder.”
“Hopefully there isn’t anything deeper in this cave that wants to eat us for dinner,” Delven added.
“My shield should keep the water out, at least,” Hawthorne added cheerfully. “We won’t get flooded or anything. I wonder how far this thing goes down.”
Keolah sat back and watched the waves of mana flow through the air. It hadn’t been apparent out in the forest, but here it was clear that they were all emanating from inside this cave.
“Keolah?” Hawthorne said.
Keolah looked over to her.
“Do you see something in the cave?” Hawthorne asked.
Keolah turned back toward the source of the emanations. “Yeah.”
“What is it?” Delven asked.
“I have no idea,” Keolah admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Well, is it alive?” Hawthorne asked.
Keolah frowned thoughtfully, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Living beings, even animals, have an aura around them. Normal animals have a faint aura without much color, but it’s definitely there. Normal plants don’t have an aura. Nothing alive, not even animals, has a colorless aura. And I’m not detecting any color to this.”
Hawthorne stared down the tunnel leading further underground, practically twitching.
Keolah sighed. “Hawthorne. You want to find out what it is.”
“Well…” Hawthorne said.
“You don’t have to sneak off or run off, you know,” Keolah said. “This may well be incredibly dangerous. But I’m not letting you go off alone to do whatever stupid thing you’re going to do.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious yourself,” Hawthorne said.
Keolah paused thoughtfully, then chuckled. “I’d be lying if I said otherwise.”
“Well, we’ve come this far,” Delven said. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Zendellor nickered. Keolah took this to mean agreement, although she wasn’t entirely certain.
“Alright then, it’s settled, I think,” Keolah said. “Let’s dry off, get some food in our bellies, get a good night’s sleep, and then we can go in and see what’s inside the mysterious, dangerous skull-shaped cave.”
“Why does it have to be shaped like a skull?” Delven mumbled.
“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Hawthorne said.
“There’s rarely such a thing as coincidence where magic is concerned,” Keolah said.
“And every tall rock is shaped like a dildo, too,” Hawthorne said.
Delven cleared his throat.
“You know, I could have just said ‘Hey, let’s go into the vagina cave!’,” Hawthorne said.
“This cave is not shaped like a vagina,” Keolah said.
“All caves are shaped like vaginas!” Hawthorne said. “You know what I used to call that tunnel near Wishingsdale?”
Delven put his face in his palm.
“Right then…” Keolah said with a smirk. “This cave is definitely not shaped like a vagina.”
“Fine, fine,” Hawthorne said. “We’ll explore the cave in the morning.”
“Whatever is back there might actually be the key to getting out of here,” Delven said.
“Or might be more important than simply getting out of here,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne was in love. At first, it had just been a crush on a cute girl who had walked into her village one day, nothing more. And now she didn’t know what to think. Keolah had come through a dangerous, magical forest for her, hugged her and expressed feelings of gratitude at seeing her again. Surely she clearly shared Hawthorne’s feelings. But more than that, Keolah was willing to share her adventures with her.
Hawthorne’s heart was light and she couldn’t help but smile when she looked across the weird green campfire at her. That green fire that perfectly framed Keolah’s face in light like her green hair, and shone off of her silver eyes. Hawthorne was no poet, but right now, she felt like waxing poetic about this woman in front of her. She could hardly focus on her continued language lessons. It took a long time to get to sleep.
She couldn’t see magic like a Seeker could, like Keolah could, but even she could tell something was deeply weird about this place. When she dreamed, she dreamed a nightmare of the sun winking out above her head, of the edges of the world falling away as she looked on in horror. Why couldn’t she have some nice dreams about Keolah instead?
Come morning, they packed up everything and headed into the cave. The thunderstorm had tapered off overnight, but she couldn’t tell if anything was still burning out there. Either way, it was best to stay in here for a while.
The visions grew stronger as they traveled through the cave. Not people, not ghosts or spirits or anything else. The visions were always the same. That of a world breaking apart into an endless void. Back in the forest, there had been whispers, even screams, faces of people confused and terrified. There was none of that here.
But then, they stopped. There was no clear transition. They just faded away as if they’d never been there. Keolah’s eyes flicked all around them, and Hawthorne had to wonder just what she was seeing.
“What’s going on?” Delven wondered. “Something is… odd.”
“You mean something is odd by not being odd,” Hawthorne said. “The visions stopped.”
“Not just that,” Delven said. “Wait a minute. Do any of you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Keolah asked.
“We’re too light,” Delven said.
“Huh?” Keolah raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
Now that she thought about it, Hawthorne realized she did feel strange. Her feet didn’t quite connect to the ground as firmly as they normally did, like when she was using Wind Magic to help her jump or fall. Experimentally, she jumped up and touched a hand against the ceiling.
“That’s possibly stranger than the fact that the flow of mana has settled off,” Keolah said. “It’s still there, it’s just not flowing out anymore. Like a fine haze over everything. Honestly, it’s a lot less distracting this way, too.”
“Let’s keep going,” Hawthorne said. “I think I might see an opening up ahead.”
“You see sunlight?” Delven asked.
Hawthorne paused and frowned. “No. No draft, either. Probably a larger cavern.”
The tunnel opened up into a larger space, and Hawthorne looked up, expecting to see a roof covered in stalactites. A heavenly dome stretched overhead, but it was no blue sky dotted with white clouds. A black void encompassed them, swirling with purple streaks that gave off a faint light, enough to see by without Keolah’s mage-flame.
“Is… Is that the sky?” Delven gaped.
Hawthorne frowned. “That can’t be the sky.”
“I think that’s the sky,” Keolah said.
“How in the Abyss can that be the sky?” Hawthorne wondered.
“What else could it be?” Keolah asked.
“I don’t know, a weird magical dome over this weird magical place?” Hawthorne said.
“Forget the sky, look at the ground,” Delven said.
Hawthorne hardly called herself an Earth Mage, but what she saw under her feet was nothing like any stone she had never seen. For one thing, it was pale yellow. Further ahead of them lay something vaguely resembling a road lined with black markings like words in an alphabet she couldn’t read.
“Where in the Abyss and the everlasting Void are we?” Hawthorne said, walking up to the curve of runes.
“I don’t know that I’d want to touch the weird magical markings,” Delven said.
“It’s probably okay,” Keolah said. “I’m not detecting any mana in them. They’re totally inert.”
“For now,” Delven said. “How do you know they won’t just suddenly reactivate and do something weird and magical?”
“To be fair, most magic is weird,” Hawthorne said.
“It’s really not,” Keolah said. “This magic, on the other hand, is definitely weird.”
“Well, I’m going to go poke the weird magical markings,” Hawthorne said.
“Right, I’m standing over here then,” Delven said.
“I don’t think that will help if it does activate something,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne went over and nudged the runes with the toe of her boot. Nothing happened. She bent over and poked at them with a finger. Nothing continued to happen. By the time she was dancing around between them, she was pretty sure that nothing was going to happen.
“Safe to explore, I think,” Keolah said. “Let’s take a look around, but let’s stick together.”
“Right,” Hawthorne said.
The four of them set out to take a closer look around. Before pressing too far into the curve of runes, they went over toward the edge of, well, the world, apparently. Hawthorne had thought it looked odd that there didn’t seem to be a horizon or anything visible in the distance but more purple sky, and sure enough, the world simply came to an edge, dropping off into an endless void.
“I don’t suppose you see anything down there, Keolah?” Delven asked, hesitantly looking over the edge.
Keolah shook her head. “Just a lot of mana, nothing substantial. I’m starting to think that we’re not in the ‘real world’.”
“This place certainly seems real to me,” said Hawthorne, turning back toward the broad circle of runes. “Weird, but real.”
“Right, maybe ‘real’ is the wrong term for it,” Keolah said. “This place isn’t so much unreal as it is different from our reality.”
Hawthorne pointed off toward the center of the circle. “I think there’s something in the middle there.”
“Best be cautious,” Keolah said. “If anything is likely to do anything in this place, it’ll be there.”
Within the large ring of runes, straight rows lead off toward the center at angles like eight spokes of a wheel. At each intersection where the spokes met the wheel, a round, raised basin sat empty. In the center, eight obelisks loomed in a smaller circle, covered in black runes. Hawthorne went up and touched one of them, and looked around at them, frowning thoughtfully.
“Whatever is here, this is the focal point,” Keolah said. “And it’s all inert. There’s magic here, there’s mana everywhere, but it’s dead, or just inactive, I’m not sure which.”
“Right, I think I speak for all of us when I say, what in the Abyss is this?” Hawthorne said.
Zendellor nickered in agreement.
“One way or another, I think we’ve figured out what’s causing the weirdness in the Witchwood, though,” Delven said.
Keolah nodded. “Raw mana is flowing out of this realm and into our realm.”
“Does mana normally cause people to hear things and see things?” Hawthorne wondered.
“Well, no, but apparently raw mana does?” Keolah mused. “Probably because it hasn’t been filtered through anyone’s soul and is just kind of floating around there on its own.”
“Didn’t you say we’re basically standing in the middle of a cloud of raw mana?” Hawthorne said.
“True,” Keolah said. “I have no idea, then.”
“Either way, can we get a fire going here?” Hawthorne asked. “That purple light in the sky is creeping me out and here I was just starting to get used to your nice green flames. I’m sure Zendellor might like to lay down all that junk we’ve had him carrying around, too.”
“Are we going to stay here for the moment, then?” Delven asked.
“Eh, why not?” Hawthorne shrugged. “I want to check things out and test out a few things.”
“Alright then,” Delven said.
“I agree,” Keolah said. “I’d dearly like to get a closer look at these runes. And copy them down. Make some sketches. When we get out of here, I want to see if we can find any sort of information on this place, and coming back here to double-check things would be non-trivial.”
Keolah moved off a little ways from the circle of obelisks and conjured a green campfire, then jumped back in surprise at the size of it. Hawthorne realized a little late that that could have gone badly, with the amount of mana in the air, but the fire seemed to come up normally and not burn anything it wasn’t supposed to.
“That was… easy,” Keolah said. “I was only even trying to make a candle-size flame just to test it out. Gods, I could probably keep that burning forever with no drain on me. This is absurd.”
“Well, if it’s so easy, maybe you could give us a ceiling, too,” Hawthorne said. “You know Earth Magic, don’t you?”
“I guess,” Keolah said. “I’ve never tried to make anything big before, though, and with the amplified magic in here, I’m not sure what would happen.”
“With all the mana in the world, this is the place to find out, right?” Hawthorne said.
“This is reckless,” Keolah said with a sigh.
“You’ll need to grow some plants to feed us in here anyway, though,” Hawthorne said. “Unless we’re just going to live on rations forever. How many of those do we have left?”
“I’ll start small,” Keolah said. “But maybe we shouldn’t do this right at the obelisks.” She dismissed the fire. “For all I know this might trigger something, and something not necessarily good. And no, I don’t really think throwing mana at the obelisks to try to get them to do something is a good idea, either.”
Hawthorne went up to an obelisk, grinning wildly. She put her hand against it, and before anyone could stop her, pulsed her mana into the runes. The entire complex lit up as the runes flashed cyan. She had no idea what might happen or what she’d just done, but she didn’t feel any different, at least, but she’d gotten a very odd sensation when she did that.
“Hawthorne!” Keolah cried.
“It’s not totally inert,” Hawthorne observed.
“I can see that, but please get away from there,” Keolah said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“This probably isn’t a weapon,” Hawthorne said.
“How can you be sure of that?” Keolah asked.
“I don’t know,” Hawthorne said. “It didn’t… feel hostile?”
“Just because it’s not a weapon doesn’t mean it can’t hurt us,” Delven pointed out. “Steam engines aren’t meant to hurt people, either, but they can still do so if you’re not careful with them.”
“I guess.” Hawthorne shrugged. “But I wanted to see if it was really inert or not.”
“Well, now we know, so can you please get away from there?” Keolah looked at her with such concern that Hawthorne sheepishly stepped away.
“Sorry,” Hawthorne said, looking at the ground.
Keolah went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go. We can set up camp outside the circle of runes. I’ll grow some small trees to attach our hammocks to, and I’ll see if I can get a small farm set up to feed us while we’re here. We’ll come back here later and take notes on these runes.”
“Alright,” Hawthorne said, sighing.
Ten minutes later, they crossed outside of the large circle and set up camp some distance away. Even though this pocket-world wasn’t especially large, maybe two miles or so from edge to edge, there was still plenty of room to work with without being afraid of simply dropping off into the Void.
“First things first, I’m going to need to convert some of this…” Keolah tapped her foot on the yellowish ground. “… whatever this is, into dirt. A top layer will do. A few feet deep is all that’s really needed.”
Hawthorne had no idea where one might even begin to do something like that, but Keolah seemed to know what she was doing, so Hawthorne just sat back and watched. Bit by bit, the ground started changing into loose dirt.
“Keolah,” Hawthorne interrupted. “Not to be the one to advocate caution here or anything, but, how do you know there’s anything solid under the dirt you’re making? How thick is this weird yellow stuff?”
Keolah paused thoughtfully. “I’ll avoid standing on whatever I’m changing.”
Hawthorne stood up and went over to her. “I’ll help.”
“How?” Keolah asked. “You’re not an Earth Mage.”
Hawthorne grinned and put an arm around Keolah’s waist, lifted them both into the air, and put a shield underneath their feet. “Like so.”
“Well, that works,” Keolah said, then grinned back at her. “Do you normally hug people to cast spells on them?”
“Sorry.” Hawthorne released her, cheeks burning. “I was never good at doing magic at a distance.”
“By all means, keep hugging me, then.” Keolah’s grin broadened, practically teasing her. “You wouldn’t want me to fall.”
“Get a room, you two!” Delven called over from the camp.
Hawthorne put one arm around Keolah’s waist again, and lifted the other to extend her middle finger toward Delven. Keolah floated away from camp, forming dirt as she went as Hawthorne continued to maintain the barrier at their feet.
“Could you have done this in our realm?” Hawthorne asked.
“Yes,” Keolah said. “But it would have taken a lot longer, and I would have had to regularly rest to let my mana replenish. There’s so much ambient mana here that it replenishes as fast as I can use it.”
“So is what you’re making going to be real food — or material food, I suppose — or just ethereal food that will leave us still hungry or possibly starving once we get back to our realm?” Hawthorne asked.
“I have no idea,” Keolah said. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Hawthorne chuckled. “Now who’s being reckless?”
“Well, one or another of us can remind the other when we’re being silly.” Keolah giggled.
“Deal,” Hawthorne said.
Being next to a cute girl notwithstanding, it was nice to be able to use as much magic as she liked. She’d never been able to get a strong enough lift in the material world to actually fly, not even with the additional mana she could draw using her sword, and now she was finding herself liking it quite a bit. She could probably just use Wind Magic to suspend herself in the air like she did when she jumped, but figured the platform she was using was more useful when holding up another person like this. Once they returned to the other side, she was going to miss this.
Once they reached the edge of the world, Keolah said, “So, want to take a look over the edge?”
Hawthorne made a soft squeaking sound and clenched Keolah tightly.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Keolah said.
The thought of all that drop into nothingness was terrifying, and Hawthorne wasn’t quite confident yet in her ability to maintain the platform holding them up. She’d stuck to holding them a foot above the ground, close enough that a fall into soft dirt wasn’t going to seriously hurt them if her magic faltered.
“Alright, let’s head back then and sweep down a stretch of ground I haven’t converted yet,” Keolah said.
They headed back over to camp, which had remained firmly where it had been before, although Zendellor was now in human form chatting with Delven. At least splitting up didn’t seem to be a problem here. For all that the place was definitely not normal, at least it didn’t cause any sort of confusion effects or have space constantly change. Hawthorne still wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten lost in the forest. She’d only taken a few steps in and suddenly Keolah and Delven were gone and she couldn’t see the wall anymore even though it had been right there.
Since the ground seemed to be not going anywhere, Hawthorne set them gently down on the ground and dispelled her floating platform, but she didn’t let go until she was sure the dirt could hold their weight. Whatever the pocket-world was made of seemed to be thick enough that a few feet of dirt wasn’t going to make it collapse, though, at least.
“Let’s see about getting some plants going, then,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne took a seat over next to the fire and watched as a garden emerged from the ground.
“I’d ask whether you need any seeds for that, but apparently not,” Hawthorne said.
“No, but I do need to know every plant I’m making very well, or it will come out wrong,” Keolah said. “I don’t imagine that when the elves came to Rascalanse, they brought seeds with them. Their Earth Mages probably just remembered how to make the plants they’d been able to make back in Zarhanna.”
“You know, I was just telling Zendellor,” Delven said. “There didn’t seem to be any bones in the cave or in the pocket-world. Whoever got lost in the forest didn’t make it this far.”
“I bet it just needed a Seeker to find it,” Hawthorne said.
“Okay, Keolah,” Delven said. “You’re growing plants over there. How are they supposed to live without sunlight?”
Keolah paused and looked over to him. “I have no idea.”
“So they might just die once you stop putting magic in them,” Delven said.
“The magic may well be enough to sustain them, though,” Keolah said. “We’ll have to see. If they die in the next few days, we’ll know it wasn’t enough.”
Delven looked to the sky. “However much a ‘day’ matters in this place. I kind of wish I’d invested in a watch.”
“I’m afraid I can’t make one for you,” Keolah said, chuckling. “I don’t know how one works. I know plants, I can burn things, and apparently I can find long-forgotten caverns in the midst of magical forests.”
“And I can…” Hawthorne stood up and jumped into the air, and just hovered there. “I can flyyyyyy!” She lifted further up off the ground, floated around in circles, faster and giggling madly.
“I’ll just remind you that, while I have healing potions, they can’t fix broken bones,” Keolah said.
“I’ll be fine,” Hawthorne said, windmilling her arms in the air. “I never hurt myself when falling no matter how far I fall.”
“And you were afraid of falling off the edge of the world?” Keolah asked.
“Damned right I was,” Hawthorne said. “If I fall off a roof, I know there will be ground somewhere below. I don’t know what to think about not having a ground below. From now on, though, I’m going to be floating a comfortable six inches above the ground at all times.”
They spent the next several days inside the pocket-world, experimenting and taking records of things. They made sure to test going inside and outside the tunnel entrance, just to make sure it remained accessible and that nothing happened to anything left inside the pocket-world once everyone was gone. The plants Keolah had grown didn’t die, either. They didn’t seem to particularly mind that there wasn’t any sun giving them energy, and there was really nothing natural about them. A quick look outside the skull cave indicated that the forest immediately surrounding them was on fire. It seemed they weren’t going anywhere for a while.
Upon seeing that the arcane construct remained stable and inert if no mana was directed straight into it, Keolah acquiesced to growing a makeshift building near it as a convenient central location. That was an interesting experiment on her part, as she’d never tried actually growing a building before, even though in the material world she’d made minor adjustments to her own home. everything seemed so easy to do here, though, and while her building wasn’t perfect, it was more than suitable for their purposes. She’d always wanted to one day grow her own home, and while an inn in a pocket-world had not been what she’d been expecting, it turned out well enough.
Delven took careful notes of the entire rune complex, faithfully reproducing each one and drawing diagrams. Hawthorne declared one section of the pocket-world “The Junkyard” and dumped most of their old bronze weapons there. Nobody had wanted to buy them anyway, and Keolah figured it was just as well to leave them here rather than haul them around. It’s not like anyone was going to steal them from here. Not from the other side, at any rate. And if anything lived on this side of the portal, they had yet to see any sign.
“I’m full of questions about this place,” Delven said. “It had to have come from somewhere. Someone had to have built it. But who, when, why?”
“You said Scalyr has a good library,” Keolah said.
“Probably the biggest in Kalor, yes,” Delven said.
Keolah nodded. “We’ll head there next, see what we can learn.”
“And here I was almost starting to get used to this place,” Hawthorne said. “Still, I’ll be glad to be out in the sun again and among people. Even people I can’t understand.”
“There should be more people in Scalyr who speak elvish,” Delven said.
“And I’ll be back to pretending to be an ordinary horse again,” Zendellor said. “Maybe it was just as well I couldn’t understand anything anyone else was saying, but I’ve been picking up some things myself.”
“But, Zendellor, your bipedal form is human,” Keolah said. “How do you not know the human tongue?”
Zendellor snorted softly. “Would an elf baby raised by humans know to speak elvish without any exposure to it?”
“Right, I guess not,” Keolah said. “That was a silly question.”
“I learned elvish from Hawthorne there,” Zendellor said. “As she’s calling herself these days. You know there was a full year when we were younger that she insisted on calling herself ‘Lady Dawning Blade’?”
“It was a perfectly good name,” Hawthorne said.
“Do we have everything we’re taking with us?” Keolah asked. “Let’s make sure we’re squared away and head out the passage to the cave, and see what the time and weather is like outside. Come morning, we can see about getting out of this forest.”
“I hope you have an idea how to get out of here,” Delven said.
“I do,” Keolah said. “All the mana in the forest ultimately flows out of the cave. If I just direct us ‘downstream’, that should get us out of the forest, one way or another.”
“I’ll leave that to you, then,” Delven said.
Hawthorne grinned wildly. “Time for another adventure.”
“You’re staying in sight if I have to hold your hand the entire time,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne paused thoughtfully. “I have no objection to this.”