My search continued, but there was nothing. Just trees and stones and rodents. I ran across several of the wands I had made, but the most I could have done would have been to disintegrate them. I had no equipment and so few skills. If only Mac were there.
...Mac!
Chapter 15
The calculations were simple, and soon I was flying over the ground, searching for my wands. They stood out like staples on a sheet of paper. There was one, then two, and with each success I was able to find them faster. Moving from wand to wand, I began to recognize the path I had taken while hunting, and when it brought me back to Mjorn’s camp I circled out again to find the spot where I had slept two nights past, before Mjorn’s invitation. The night crawled by, but I began to learn the feel of different things, which enabled me to increase my speed until running across my original trail of wands came to me as a series of braille bumps, strewn against the background of the forest.
Elated, I raced along the path, knowing that it would lead me back to the city. I could scarcely believe my luck in having left myself a trail of breadcrumbs purely by accident. I didn’t know how I’d find Mac, but if I could just reach the city... And then, an ethereal rumble strip. Something else was there. Several large animals, by the feel of it. I could sense fire as well, and so I slowed. People! I had stumbled across another camp! Slowly, I moved over each one, trying to translate what I was sensing into appearances. Maybe these others could help me!
The first person was small, and had a huge nose. They had been lying down, but now they were up. I felt pointed ears and an oversized nose. A goblin! The others were standing now as well. I felt a tall muscular woman—with tusks! Growing more and more excited, I flitted to the others. A dwarf. A gnome. And finally… Mac! It had to be Mac! They must have followed me somehow!
Hoping against hope that it would work, I attached a flow and pulled three times, quick, quick, quick, and then drained my mana to nearly empty and pulled three more times. Slow, slow, slow. I could feel that the elf woman had frozen. Quick, quick, quick. Slow, slow, slow. Quick, quick, quick. Slow, slow, slow. S.O.S.O.S.O.S.O... Soon enough, I could feel her nodding vigorously. This was going to work!
The others seemed to be moving purposefully now. It wasn’t accurate, but I could sense their movement peripherally. I felt as they moved off, one by one, in separate directions. Of course! If I had found them there, then they must have already been following my wands. But finding a twig that had been made into a wand in the forest was like looking for a specific needle in a stack of needles. And it was dark, no less. They’d need some help.
Glad that my mana was full, I raced away from the group to find the nearest wand—a much easier task for me than for them, since I could sense its mana.
With a sharp push, I released a torrent into it. The knotted strands dissipated violently, and the wand was no more. I could only hope it had made a loud enough crack to attract the others. I rushed back to the group to see their response. Sure enough, they had started moving in the direction of the noise.
Mentally crowing with success, I waited until the group grew close to the shattered wand, and then I detonated the next. They moved faster now, and had gathered together. Every 30 seconds or so, I had enough mana back and would erupt the next wand.
We continued in that fashion for maybe ten minutes before I was jerked roughly back to my body by a slap to the face. I opened my eyes groggily to see Mjorn’s face looming close in the early morning light. Now that the seduction was broken, he was nowhere near as handsome. The sneer didn’t help matters either. “You may be all but useless, but you are still mine one way or another, troll. The Mayor’s Ring sees to that. Now, stand up and get back to camp. You’ve got work to do.”
Now that I knew rescue was coming, Mjorn’s face didn’t hold nearly the amount of terror for me that it had, but I definitely remembered my last glimpse of it. No wonder Mac had been so fidgety after her respawn. Dying was zero fun. That in mind, and finding my body was once again under my control, I scrambled to my feet. While standing, I snapped a flow on Mjorn and give a sharp tug, just in case. His Intellect was too high though, and the flow couldn’t find a purchase. I really would have to wait for Mac and the others to rescue me.
Mjorn marched me out of the ravine and back to the camp, where Remaldra gave me yet another wink, this one scornful, and then set me to work. First, I scrubbed pots—which was no fun, as campfire cooking produces mostly char—and then I was set to work carting supplies to wagons. The work wasn’t difficult, but it was monotonous. I didn’t mind much. It appeared the caravan was moving out, and I had a lot of planning to do.
First to figure out was how to track our path after the wagons were underway. Finding the party again without a trail of breadcrumbs would be doable, but would take valuable time. I was doubtful Mjorn would let me too far out of his sight, just in case I got more than 100 meters away, and the wagons left me behind, paralyzed. He would likely have me watched at all times. Second, I needed to plan my escape, which meant figuring out a way to actually communicate with the rescue party. It also meant I’d need to size up Mjorn’s gang. Third… well, two goals was enough for the moment.
The trouble was that my rescue squad was going to be seriously outclassed against Mjorn’s mob. The players had come into the world as virtual infants, with barely enough stats to keep us alive. Mac and I had only been able to reach Level 3 together, and the other four players had to be functioning along a similar trajectory. Mjorn’s band had at least 12 members with gear, and given what skills I’d seen on display, that included Mjorn’s Charisma, as well as various tracking and hunting skills, and what I was sure would be a fair number of surprises. That meant we needed every advantage we could scrape together—my mana manipulation coupled with whatever skills and gear Mac and Co. could manage. I hoped Mac was thinking along similar lines.
When it came time to leave, I was finally allowed to return to my corpse and collect my items. The cursed ring was “etherbound” to me and had followed me through respawn, but my other gear hadn’t done the same. That was yet another thing I desperately needed to figure out, along with how to get bloodstains out of my robe.
Back at camp, Mjorn loaded me into a wagon with the goblin alchemist. Luckily, it was one of the uncovered cargo wagons. I doubted I would have been able to pull off my plan from indoors. I would have to enchant wands at a distance, and not only had I never done that, it would also arouse suspicion if I spent long minutes staring off into space.
As the wagons moved out, we started in again on making potions and poultices. I used any free moments to enchant branches along the path, pushing mana into twigs, big and small, whenever I had the mana and the time. At least it kept me from denaturing any of the poultices.
It was during the meal and rest breaks that the second stage of my plan came into action. As soon as a halt was called, I began to fill the space with mana, laced in tiny, knotted flows of 5 to 6 mana apiece. They were trivial at best, due to my reduced mana pool, but over the course of an hour’s break I could manage nearly 150 of them, by my calculations. Regardless whether we stopped for 5 minutes or 50, I littered the trail with packet after tiny packet of mana.
If ever Mjorn came around to check on me, I did my best to act cowed, which wasn’t hard. I was still plenty afraid of him. What was hard was concealing the anger that was welling up inside me. Enslaving me was bad, but I wanted him to pay for how he had toyed with my affection! That anger mingled with my embarrassment and shame to form a grudge I was aching to realize.
I must have done a good enough job of convincing him that I was sufficiently in line though, because when we finally stopped for the day he allowed me to search for firewood unsupervised—not that there was much of anything I could do. Making sure to keep camp in sight, I searched for firewood. I picked up branches for enchanting as well, though I left those in the woods after altering them. Soon enough I had returned to camp, eager to find my bed even though the sun was st
ill up.
When I took my request to Mjorn, he simply waved me away, muttering that I could sleep under the wagon I’d ridden in that day. Not the least bit caring of where I’d sleep, I rushed off to comply. The second half of stage 2 was a go.
Mac’s party was further along the breadcrumb trail than I’d left them, but not by much. Searching for the wands really was painstaking work, even though I had made them in roughly a straight line. Once I got to exploding them again, the group’s pace picked up dramatically, until all I could feel of them were indistinct blurs. They must have been waiting for my signal.
I silently thanked Mac for the hustle as I fell to my work. Recharge, detonate, recharge, detonate.
And then there were no more wands. They had reached the spot where Mjorn had first invited me to his camp.
Here my task became trickier, since there was no clear path between this camp and Mjorn’s. Searching for the nearest wand and then finding the group again took longer than I had anticipated, and there were several false starts as I cracked branches, here in the wrong direction, and there too far from the group to be heard. Still, in fits and starts, I managed to lead them to the trail of wands I’d left while hunting. Once they’d reached that more-consistent trail, we rushed together on to the campsite Mjorn’s party and I had left that morning.
Then came the truly tricky part. I had to find some way to communicate my plan to Mac. I needed them stronger. As strong as possible. I needed them casting in pursuit of ranking up their spells.
My first attempt at communicating this failed, as did my second, and I took some time to consider the problem. There was only so much I could communicate by exploding branches.
It was while I was lost in thought that I felt a ripple run through me, as though a stone had been thrown into the ether. The goblin had cast—Varba, was it?—or at least she’d acquired a tiny globe of mana over her head! Quickly, I searched for one of the loops of mana I'd left in the clearing, then felt for Varba and fed it to her. I hoped she’d notice.
More ripples from Varba, spreading warmth and well-being around her. The scent of it reminding me of Mjorn’s Charisma-enchanted earring. Was this Light magic, then? By process of elimination, I figured it had to be.
The others moved away from the fire as I worked with Varba, and I began to feel intermittent pulses of mana from them. What a team! Of course getting the healer stronger spells would be the priority, but we’d need every advantage we could get.
I started to get excited about our prospects. At that point the party was only a day away. If I could just get everyone to their second-tier spells… Varba and I quickly worked through the mana I had stored in the glade, her casting while I searched for packets of mana to feed to her. We managed 44 casts, by my count, before the mana nodes were exhausted.
We raced onward, and now that I knew what to look for, I could tell they were still hard at work casting. The night wore on.
By the time the team arrived at the clearing that had been my midday stop, exhaustion was starting to overwhelm my excitement. I managed two dozen or so casts with Varba before it became clear to me that there was no way I could continue that night. I left the team, hoping they'd get some rest too, and I embraced sleep.
Chapter 16
When Mjorn kicked me awake the next morning, I met the day with the bright-eyed energy of a person with something to look forward to. I had plans. Oh, I had plans! The party was pushing themselves, and I would need to as well, in the only way I knew how. I would buff the crap out of their Mana Regen. That meant rings, necklaces, wands—anything I could make. At my best, I figured I could add nearly 10% to a person’s Mana Regen, altogether.
The truly complicated part would be convincing Mjorn to allow me the gear. I hadn't even thought of wearing the rings and necklaces myself, but if he’d let me, it would be a simple enough matter to “lose” some extras in the forest. Plus, with 10 Wisdom and 15 Int, an additional 10% would take my own regen to 35 MP/min, equivalent to having my Wisdom in the mid 30’s! Spinning that as a positive for Mjorn would be possible, wouldn't it? He’d get more enchantments out of me, at least.
It turned out that Mjorn’s main concern seemed to be that I not bother him. He looked to have gotten as little sleep as I had, and when I asked him about gear he just cursed at me and sent me off to gather firewood. Taking that as a yes, I rushed through my chores. Really, the fact that Mjorn had so completely written me off as a threat meant that my captivity wasn't especially onerous. With my rescue on the way, I was almost starting to have fun, as long as I didn’t think too carefully about Mjorn and his knife.
Once the order was called to move out, Remaldra appeared to direct my attention toward the stacks of materials to process, as well as some completed items that had been loaded into my wagon. I expected her to join me as the alchemist had, but apparently I didn't warrant her attention either. That suited me just fine, so I set to work.
The enchanting went slowly—so slowly! Even though setting up the individual mana flows was starting to go quickly and make a lot of sense, having my mana capped at 10 meant everything had to be done in tiny increments. I was tired enough without knocking myself out by overdrawing my mana, and so I crept through enchanting rings and a necklace for myself and then, shamelessly, I took a nap.
The cart rolling to a stop startled me awake, and I prayed that no one had seen me sleeping. I was sure Mjorn would make time for me if I stopped producing for him. Not wanting that attention, I didn't even bother venturing out of the cart, hoping to make up the time I’d spent napping.
I was kicking myself for not making gearing up the party my first priority. Sure, I could buff them at night, but giving them each an additional 1-3 points of Mana Regen per minute would far outshine my nighttime contributions. Fortunately, the rings were relatively fast to make and easy to smuggle. I stowed them somewhere on my person I was sure no one would want to look, and hoped the rescue party would be understanding—or just never find out.
The necklaces and wands would be more difficult, since not only were they harder to make, but they were larger and more conspicuous. I absolutely could not afford anyone finding out what I was doing. The fact that Mjorn and Co. had no idea that a rescue was underfoot was a big part of why I was allowed as free a run of the camp as I was.
And so, when the midday stop came, I ventured out into the forest to relieve myself and found a secluded trunk. Removing my necklace, I looped it through each of the rings I’d made, and buried them along with my wand in a pile of leaves against the trunk. I created as many trash wands as I felt I had time to, and arrayed them around the gear, all pointing toward the cache. Looking back over the area to ensure it looked undisturbed, I gave a quick prayer that the items would find their intended owners and went to make good on relieving myself.
After reoutfitting myself, the rest of the day was dedicated to crafting and enchanting, and I moved quickly to make up for my “preoccupation.” There was no more spare mana to leave for the party until the caravan stopped for the night, and once I had completed my tasks for Mjorn—and “lost” another wand and necklace in the woods—I retired to my bed under the wagon.
The party hadn’t waited for me to return the night before, but had made their way steadily along the trail I had left for them—actually the trail the caravan had left for them, at that point. Six wagons really couldn’t move without leaving traces behind.
I popped a wand to say hello and, once they were ready, I led them on to the next bundle of mana I’d placed in their path.
They reached the caravan’s next camp more quickly than I would have thought, moving much faster than the wagons were able to through the forest. Encouraged by their progress, I fed the clearing’s stored mana into Varba and then led them on, excited for the group to reach the midday stop and the gear I’d secreted for them. I couldn’t afford to go to sleep and risk them missing the cache without me there to direct them to it.
My excitement grew as they near
ed. I was all but useless to the party, but at least I could do this one thing for them.
In my haste, I rushed over a huge lump of concentrated mana before I could stop myself, and had to backtrack, curious. Whatever it was, it was big, and it hadn’t been there when I’d been making my way to the players. I felt over the shape to get an initial sense of it. Tall. Taller than the orc woman, Me’Almah, but that’s all I could tell. As I passed over, it shifted. And then it moved, and I lost track of it for a second. When I managed to find it again, it became clear the shape was moving and heading toward the party.
I was at a loss. Aside from knocking low-Int creatures out, I had no offensive capabilities in my ethereal form, and on top of that I had no real way to communicate. Transferring mana was all I could do. Rushing back to the party, I flew around them in a frenzy, hoping that whatever had alerted the creature to my presence could also alert them. I also flailed about with flows, pushing and pulling mana in a frantic attempt to appear frantic. It seemed to work, because they slowed their pace and then stopped, but that’s the most I could discern without spending more time. Returning to the creature, I could tell that it was nearly on top of them.
I felt a rush of wellbeing followed closely by a slightly nauseating feeling, and then a pulse of fire. The beast was on them in a flurry of motion I simply couldn’t track. Rushing around the battlefield again and again to try and keep a sense of what was happening, I saw that the party had grouped together. I could feel that someone—probably Mac—was casting Fire spell after Fire spell. Jumping to that person, I emptied all the mana I could spare. Another shape met with the creature, and together they turned into an indistinguishable lump. By the size, I assumed it was Me’Almah. With her hands busy, I assumed she didn’t need the mana, and so I swiped it from her and sent it to Mac. Me’Almah didn’t faint, so that was a plus.
Considering the scene, there wasn’t much more magic I felt safe moving around. I just didn’t know enough about the party. I knew Mac needed all the mana she could get though. Could I just drain the ground again? Connecting a flow to the ground behind the creature, I started pumping mana into Mac, only able to handle a few seconds’ worth with my cursed mana pool.
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