Author: Princess Jess
Publisher: WordPress?
Date: Winter 2024-25′
Pacing: •*Highway speed (experimental label, we’ll see if I continue it)
Warning to the Reader: This, little story of mine, doesn’t have enough words to be written into a book. It is also pretty raw (not translation raw, but just roughly written ‘freestyle’ of a Pantser, while in the zone). From run on sentences, to typos, and overuse of the word ‘then’, along with many other errors, there hadst been very little editing, if any. Please don’t mind the roughness of the brainstormed WC (World Creation) and enjoy the nameless story.
_
Title: White_Goblin_1, Turning Mana Solid
Prologue: Forbidden Technique
After coming to this world, mana was a gas or spiritually intangible type energy. There was so little of it, magick was a sort of minimal use skill. I thought if I researched in secret, I could make it more useful.
Little did I know, that when I revealed my grand success, everything would go down hill from there. I showed it to my parents, a tiny seed, more like a mustard seed, it was so tiny, and then revealed it was weeks of stored energy when I didn’t need to use spells. Using multiple spells in a row, I turned to get my deserved praise, only to see the worst sort of looks on their faces: anger, horror, disbelief, and hopeless collapse.
Um.
Father was the one angry, as he marched over, enraged, demanding where I learned this foul technique? Had I been secretly exploring ruins or trying to get old information on magick.
As a fist came for my skull, I covered my head and promised it wasn’t like that. I invented it myself, so I didn’t waste energy I gathered each day during meditation and while travelling on the hunts to energy rich air. Mother was on her knees, looking helpless, asking what we should do? Father lifted me, demanding why I would reinvent a forbidden technique?
“What, a forbidden technique. No one ever told me about that!”
Mother snapped, “Of course we didn’t tell you. You were too young. Why would we tell you of something so dangerous and scary?”
I asked why it was forbidden. It seemed stable, not like it was going to explode or anything.
Dad set me down, suddenly looking weak, as he stumbled to the kitchen table, and said to come sit down, it seems I needed a night of scary stories, before I caused any other disasters. With that, I uncomfortably took a seat, far out of reach, as mother managed to get into the chair, even as tears rolled down her cheeks.
The first horror story was of a desperate war, where anything to survive was seen as a necessary war effort. But, the taking of mana, to create a physical form, turned out to not be useful in sharing the energy with others, as it made them sick. So, it could only be put in personal storage devices like necklaces. There was just one problem, while hunting, creatures could sense the gathered mana and hungered for it. With everyone gathering it, like trees to create fruit, every March, every hunt, eventually the Capital was attacked by a huge beast swarm after the land nearby was running low on energy and there was a poor harvest from nature, creating hungry beasts and monsters, from the collectively gathered energy.
It was possible to shield the effects, but the problem came after realizing beasts could eat the impure energy, purifying it, and then extracted from the beasts, could be used by anyone, in the form of drinks, jerky, or draining containers with a purification effect. The beast problem was then fixed, but the purification rate meant some energy was lost as wasted bits, some were consumed and used by the beast, leaving very very little that was useful for anyone. The effort was massive as well. Yet, it was not enough to deter when hope was seen. Fallen soldiers who had unused storage as well as those not skilled in spells but able to gather were used to get more and more, purified, and then condensed with the captured beasts with the slowest spell creation rate or most digestion efficiency.
When a large number of refugees arrived, begging for help to survive, someone decided they could use the desperate humans to their advantage. Filling the air with the worst energy wastes, having them gather through meditation into group deposits, and then have it processed, they found a way to rapidly gather solid energy. Besides that, the purification had improved from using certain beasts that gave a better return rate. I awkwardly asked if they hadn’t told me, many times, to never meditate in dirty air or toxic areas.
Mother agreed that was right, and most of those refugees eventually died of the toxic mana. But, anyone who cared about them was in the same situation, sick, weak, and had made the agreements to enter, by agreeing to work for it in this rotten way. Everyone thought the war would be won, until the secret was leaned, energy stolen on the battlefield and from the collection and purification labs, with the secrets leaked. Suddenly, human captures were more important than human kills as people were taken away from cities, soldiers captured in battle, and everyone was forced to gather energy or die.
The small war became a war on a much bigger scale with the first ones to use the technique unable to protest about the treatment of their people, because they did it to their own people first. Decades of slaughter, abductions, and horrendous atrocities, until other countries created an alliance, destroyed both countries, and forbade the solidifying of mana for the use of battle. Thus, it is a forbidden technique.
–
I glanced at what I had created and felt sick. I didn’t know it had already been tried and misused by greedy people. I promised to use it up and never do it again. My mother started sobbing, as she said it was too late. Every region tracks energy density, not only for identifying strong monsters and rare plants or mineral veins, but also to ensure the techniques were not misused. It was probably sensed the moment I began. But, after bringing it into the community, right to the house, those tracking should know exactly where it went. If I took it anywhere else, it would implicate them as well.
My father said there was only one way to fix this, and it could either be lethal or of great benefit to my abilities. I could use the spells as much as possible and then eat what remained.
Mother burst into tears.
I stammered it was weeks of gathered energy, my body couldn’t contain most of it.
“Yes, exactly, it will either kill you or return to it’s natural state and radiate from your skin as a bad odor. We can make it look like you were just playing around and didn’t know what you were doing, or we will all be sentenced to death for harboring someone who used a forbidden technique. I said while I used this up, to tell me the other Forbidden Magicks and things, so I didn’t make any more foolishly creative decisions.
. . .
So, for hours, I wasted magick, on cleaning the house, chopping wood, refilling items like protective or sensing wards, and things usually taking months.
My father couldn’t believe how much I had managed, but my mother asked how I did it. I said I needed enough to start, so I ate something with high energy and used what I ate as a start. But, after I ate it, it was easier to hold more and gather it quickly.
My mother closed her eyes and said I might not die when I swallowed it then. They took me around to neighbors, to do secret service, and pretended they were doing it as well. We stood far away or in shadows as we worked, and then hurried away before anyone saw us.
Shrinking, shrinking, and shrinking . . . until on the edge of the community, we were attacked, I fought, and then after killing it and 5 more, with the killing effort camouflaged with tools.
–
We went somewhere isolated, outside the city, and they looked at me expectantly.
I finally took the risk and swallowed what I had left. I couldn’t move it with my fingers, it was so small, like a grain or sand or salt. Yet, when I swallowed, my belly bloated, as it dissolved into gas, I burped, and small bursts of heat occured within. The fruit had been slow to warm up, like a hot relaxing bath or hot springs. This was like swallowing firecrackers or pop rocks, but instead of the tongue, it was in my belly.
I laid there, with my parents standing guard, as my body broke out in a fever, every breath in and out had dense energy evaporating with my breath. Sweating, like steam escaping my pores, I was miserably sick. I used some magick to blow air, cool my skin, and get me a little wet.
It was a mistake, as my fever started developing into a sort of flu. My mother did her best, as we moved to a cave, Dad fought, and mother cared for me with soup and other things like it was an illness.
. . .
Chapter 1 Surviving Pains of Adapting to the Unexpected
Hmm, I thought I’d finally recovered, but my parents had given me a lot of strange looks. Did I have a rash, or was I just freaky for accidentally creating forbidden magick and actually destroying it by use and consumption.
It wasn’t until I went to get water while washing in the river did I realize something had gone wrong. It wasn’t dust and pebbles coating my sweaty skin, my skin was hard, like callouses, and my pallor wasn’t from an illness, my color had changed. And, looking at my distorted face in the water, I discovered I had changed.
I didn’t look human.
Flustered and in a panic, I washed and washed myself, trying to expel as much energy from my body as possible . . . But, I had a lot of energy, a lot of spells were used abs used, wastefully, after chopping down tress, preparing them with cracks and preparatory marks, but nothing changed. I was bust a kid, so I was short, but somehow I had changed my appearance into a monster. Had I evolved?
I went to the cave, where my parents should’ve been waiting, but they were gone.
I climbed, high up, not worried about the danger, and used spells to see far away. My parents were at the house, which was surrounded, they were arrested, and then the house was set on fire.
–
Crying, because this was my fault, I turned and ran away, into the wild, away from the communities of humans, because with my collected energy, I would be a monster the sensing tools could track if I got too near. Likely, my parents would die, just as the house had burned down, all to eliminate the forbidden magick. I’d become a monster. I didn’t know what type, but as I ran, climbed, hunted, and survived in the wild, I realized my body was stronger, my ability to sense and absorb energy was stronger, and I could fell where dirty regions were before I touched, tasted, saw, or even smelled them. Energy instincts, on a high scale. But, if I stayed full of energy for too long, it started escaping my skin like a gas. It was a delicious sort of draw to carnivore, like a tantalizing scent of food cooking and ready to be served. In this way, I couldn’t be overloaded with energy. . .
. . .
After a few hard years, I had created a save cave up a cliff, made of stone, mud, and wood, with all the human protection wards I’d refilled and had to experiment how to recreate without the special inks or tools. Some were so badly drawn, they used almost ten times the amount of energy. But, in the dense cliff face region I’d decided to live in, it didn’t really matter. It allowed me to use up what I gathered fairly quickly. I also found special items growing, not ripe, but I did protections in and around them as well, so the beasts wouldn’t get them casually. Gathering, experimenting with drying into fruit leather or dehydrated with sugar made from fruits, or preserved with vinegar, I tried all sorts of things.
But, the loneliness and guilt ate away at me, until I wondered if I cared. Should I even bother trying? What was the point?
Ten years of isolation, living like a lazy trapper, unable to starve to death or freeze, I could get s little dizzy if dehydrated and overheating, but it just slowed down my energy absorption until I recovered. This new body of mine was pale enough to be albino, but my eyes weren’t red. If I went somewhere snowy, I could freeze in a block of ice and probably still not die.
I didn’t need to breathe, based on a fight I had in the river with a crocodile or alligator thing that had a really long snake tail that could shock like an eel. It couldn’t bite thought my skin, so the two weeks it tried to kill me, it was eventually exhausted and died in it’s hunting attempt, when I took my revenge, after I could breathe enough to accurately control my spells with words and focus. I’d practiced underwater casting since then, and could walk on water, create an air bubble to life me up with expanded air, or cycling water on a circle, faster and faster, until it was like a water cutter from a pressure tank. Only, the tiny circle meant it was more of a bullet or thrown stick shape than a spray from a nozzle. It just took a really long time to build up the speed and a ton of energy.
With no idea what I was, except it was from eating the fruit and my own energy made into a physics form, and I was extremely difficult to kill.
There wasn’t much for me to look forward to in my future, except a few little critters I’d idly fed my experimental preserved mana foods. They’d race off, for long periods,and then come visit me, like pets. I’d pet, cuddle, and snuggle. Quite a few of them would lick me, but I didn’t mind. I called them kisses, rather than them trying to lap up the steam evaporating from the cracks in my hardened skin.
I hadn’t grown taller or look older. I’d mostly stopped trying to keep my energy low or empty too. I’d even tried solidifying my energy into a solid seed and trying to eat it, but nothing happened except that I felt extra warm and released more from my skin. My storage might’ve grown a tiny bit, but not much. I didn’t get sick, didn’t hurt, just felt like I’d eaten a hot candy without flavor, just the burn. I didn’t try to die, but in fights, from being hit, thrown, but, fallen, or burned, I found out just how durable my unchanging body really was.
Looking at the water, I mocked myself as a White Goblin, detesting when I had to see my reflection; all of this was because I thought I was being clever. As if a simple idea any child could’ve created hadn’t been tested by someone, with a reason not to repeat them.
–
Unexpected Guests & Requests
–
Strong creatures challenged me, all the time, but I was emotionally dead, not caring if I won or lost.
That is until the day a little girl came charging through the bushes, saw me, and shrieked, “Not another monster!” Then, turning, as she covered her month, she tried to escape.
The thing chasing her was big, really big. But, when it saw me, it lost interest in the weak human with very little energy and decided to hunt me instead. I turned the opposite directing she ran, toward me cliff, and said, “That’s right big guy, follow me, the tasty smelling White Goblin here is much better than a regular young human.” And, with that, the chase was on.
I led it through areas with sharp thorns, razor vines, and all sorts of things it was weak against. Crossing territories, as I circled around, trying to find the other humans, I didn’t find any, and wondered how the girl even made it out this far alone. With no other thing to investigate, I took it to a flat stone area that it would feel confident fighting in, but the loose rock would make the shale shoot from under the paws or crack easily if it tried to run, I fought seriously for the first time in a long time.
It took me two days to kill that thing.
After the battle, I brought water to spin rapidly, to cut the hide into large chunks, like egg shells peeled from boiled eggs, except these sections were bigger than beds, and from each part of the body where it was flat or curved like a bowl. Stacking like wide plates under shallow soup bowls, all the way to taller thinner bits made from smaller places like head, and then paws, followed by the tail and little chunks. After that, blood drained, organs removed, and then the meat was cut up and prepared for preservation. Those big bones were massive, but not as sturdy for all of them, when a few seemed hollow.
Weird thing. I’d never actually tried to kill one before. But, as I dried and cut the meat into jerky, washing and then heating the stone with ‘glass like bubbles’ trapping the heat, and doing more preservation experiments with so much, I wondered how the little girl was doing.
When I was all finished, I used the now cleaned exterior shell to carry back the successful work like platters of food. Magick to lift the rest, when I had to breathe in almost as much as I used just to get this stuff in the air as I ran with the largest sort of glued to my back. It drew a lot of attention, and from scaring most away to killing the smallest, I only lost the top most bowl of messy organs that I hadn’t finished cooling yet. Most nutrient rich, but also the densest with energy and some were chewy or nasty tasting without herbs. Well, whatever, I wasn’t looking forward to eating those anyways. I had too much already.
Heading to the cliff, I used the stone path up to my storage cave to try sliding these things in. It was a little tight, when I had stuff im the way. Half sticking out of the cliff, I set it down in a tower of wobbling meat trays, and headed further into the cave I’d blocked off before. Altering the next big hollow, I blocked off the next cavern bubble, and after removing the bats, clearing away their guano, and collecting the prettier stone pieces, I altered the earth with carved out shelves, like storage in big warehouses, and added the various wards and protections I’d idly experimented with, since I hadn’t wanted to waste if getting too much. Last, I brought in the older stuff, smaller, mostly used, on things that might not last much longer, when they weren’t prepared professionally or coated with protective things. After moving a lot of dried stuff that should be packaged better, but I didn’t have the opportunity to get them, I finished pulling in the meat and shell of the latest big kill. Then, I sealed it up with stones that moved into place, only moveable by magick.
Then, I started climbing. I climbed sidewards to the waterfall first, filled a few trunks I’s hollowed out into logs and made a water proof coating with sap and ash, even though the tar like substance was a black lumpy mess, it kept the water from rotting the logs. Then, after a waterfall rinse off, with sand to scrub myself roughly, when I still hadn’t found a reliable soap I could use from this area, I returned to my space, looked out from my bed, and said in exhaustion, “I wonder if she survived.” Well, whatever. I rolled over and went to sleep.
Waking up, I filled a weird looking wooden cup I’d carved with magick, drifted it over to myself while in bed, drank it, and after stepping near the edge, dumped the last of it on top of my head.
Turning around, I was surprised to see the little girl standing in what I thought of as my living room. I glanced at my warning wards, frowned, and then looked back at her frowning.
She said quickly, “I’m sorry I called you monster.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “No, you got that right. I’m pretty much a monster.”
She shook her head and said I could speak, create human protections, and didn’t try to kill her. So, I wasn’t a real monster.
I rolled my eyes and asked what she wanted. “Well, after I tried to see if it was dead, it was originally to thank you, but after seeing this place, I decided to do something different than just words and maybe food or blankets or something. I want to trade for some of your harvest. This place has a lot of good stuff, right, and you get lots of it. I want some, so tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure you get it.”
I stared at her, not sure what to say. There were all worts of things I wish I had before: sharp metal weapons, proper cooking tools, soap . . . But, I’d mostly created spells to work around that. Also, why did this little girl think she could get such things in the wild when I couldn’t. It would take weeks or months of dangerous running. More than likely, it was just a scam. Whatever, the dried fruit tasted terrible, and it drew in bugs and such like crazy. Whatever, I’d just give it to her, and then she’d be out of my hair.
I brought up a piece of the Paw’s covering, the cracked parts from the paws, that didn’t survive well when running through areas I weakened it with. Rinsing it with water, drying it with heat, I used some of my homemade ink to create some drying, scent trapping, sealing patterns. I threw a few strips of each worst product in, saying what they were originally from, warned of the high energy content that drew in the predators, bugs, and even herbivores like crazy, but if she thought she could out run those faster than what chased her, she could knock herself out.
Then, I tried to hand it to her. She wasn’t strong enough to hold it, and fell on her butt, almost crushed by the bowl of stuff. I caught the bowl with one hand, frowned at her, sighed, and muttered I forgot how monster I’d become. It’d been more than a decade since I’d seen another human, so I’d probably gotten even stronger. A little girl without my unusual strength . . . sorry, I hadn’t thought that one through at all.
Rising, she dusted herself off, eyed the big thing I was holding with 2 fingers, and asked to please try again. Huh, stubborn kid. She thought she was going to run with this thing? I should at least make it smaller. But, I shifted my hands and said if she could lift it from my hands, she could just take it, but I wasn’t protecting her to anywhere, like camp where her family was probably worried about her after being gone for several days. She promised I didn’t need to do anything, except tell her what I wanted to trade for it.
I said she didn’t need to keep up the pretense, it’s not like she could go to and from town with this big thing or bring what I asked, so to just take it and then not trespass in my home anymore, it wasn’t safe for a human to be here.
She protested, she could too! She placed a paper, ink, and quill, saying to just write down my order. Her family was part of a big trade company, so even if she couldn’t get back, which she could, all I had to do was activate the sending on the back, and it would be delivered to the coordinates it left from. I muttered I didn’t want anyone using the coordinates if my home. I’d set up a spot out in the shale rocks. Nearest the safest path for humans, restive to the region. After all, there were toxins, poisons, dirty mana, and all sorts of nasty sections even I avoided. Anyone else would die get mana sicknesses. Besides, if I can tell I’m a monster, I doubt anyone else would see it differently, with the rare foolish exception.
She just grinned at me. I snorted, set the bowl on the ground, and stopped her from trying to pick it up, warning she’d hurt her back or tip them out if she tried. Moving to the table, I considered what I needed. Oils, metal tools, sharpening stones, soap . . . there were a lot of basic things. Glancing at the nasty fruit, I knew their value far surpassed anything mundane I could ask for, so I needed to think a little bigger. Not just camping supplies, but serious trade, if it really was possible to get a big trade company to drop it off at some random coordinates. This could take a while.
I used magick down below, to make a few wooden tools, a table, and then started cooking, telling her to have a seat, and I’d make us breakfast. Although, it might be too energy dense from the local ingredients, so not to force herself. I also couldn’t guarantee it was safe for human consumption, since I wasn’t one anymore.
Eyes sparkling, she said, “So, you did used to be human!”
“Yep, but after eating something and a dumb magick experiment that made me sick, some thought I would die, but I turned into this.” She asked what I did, exactly. I shook my head and said not to repeat something so dumb. I would never grow into an adult, I’d always look this small. She said she wanted to know what not to do.
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Right, which is why you want to trade for all this dried magick fruit.”
Had I become super exaggerated by being so isolated so long? I felt extreme in my sarcasm here. I might’ve talked only to myself and wild animals for too long. I might be going a bit crazy. And, thinking about that Forbidden Technique I did back then didn’t help at all either.
There was a reason I never tried to go back to human society, hiding with a cloak, wooden mask, and maybe shadow magick or something, and it wasn’t just me looking like a monster, it was that stupid experiment that resulted in my parents arrested and my house burned to the ground. They’d protected me, abandoned me while I was washing up but hadn’t led them to me or given me away. They protected me, never tried to hurt me for my naive mistake, and forgave me.
I couldn’t risk going back, not after I survived and they probably didn’t. It was an accident, but it was my fault. I deserved to be lonely and die for causing such misery to my innocent parents. With these dark thoughts as I cooked with magick, at the edge of my alcove, with magick, air, sunlight, and food, I finished the meal with only one large bird trying to dive over and snatch it. I killed it, dangled it from a vine, using a stone peg, and turned to see the girl giving me an odd look.
“What?”
“You use so much magick. Aren’t you saving some for later today? You must almost be out, right?”
I snorted and replied, “I told you, I’m a monster now. My limit is more than a hundred times bigger than yours. Once I fill up in energy, it starts leaking like an aroma those hungry beasts see as the promise of a yummy dinner. If I don’t use it up, just being near me will have a ton of creatures attacking, because they smell how much richer in energy I am than others. That’s why the beast stopped chasing you and targeted me.”
Awkwardly, she apologized for leading it here. She hadn’t done it on purpose. She didn’t even know I was here.
I waved it off, saying I didn’t know if I even could be killed. I’d been here for years and nothing fighting had succeeded yet. Knocked off the cliff, smashed, cut, drowned, nothing has worked. The only issue would be if I couldn’t kill it, or not scare it off, as it harassed me or took stuff I’d been protecting. But even then, it’s not like anything is really mine, just because I saw it unripe or whatever.”
She gave me a weird look, gazed out side, and muttered that was a really long fall.
I pointed up and said I fell from the top. I’ve gone down waterfall too, bit that one actually hurt. No injuries, I just didn’t feel good coming up from under the water.
She shuddered and agreed I wasn’t human, but I still wasn’t a monster. I was just sturdy. I clearly got away from the other thing.
“I killed it. It took a few days to butcher it, but the bowl is from the smallest part on the paw, like the rounded part of the pinky finger, on the edge, which is why it was so beat up.”
Looking over at the bowl, surprise on her face, she shook her head, and said alright, I was strong too, but it’s not like I was attacking cities and eating humans. As soon as she said it, she gave me an odd look. I protested I’d never eaten a human! I already told her, I hadn’t seen anyone else in ten years.
She asked who the last humans I saw were.
I winced and said, “Probably my parents.”
Seeing the look on my face, she said, “Oh, uh, sorry.” I shook my head and said it was fine. She couldn’t have known.
After a hesitation, she asked if I knew what killed them. I almost said other humans, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t know that. I couldn’t be sure. Also, she might think they turned into monsters too or I hated humans or something outrageous. “I don’t want to talk about that. I didn’t see them die, so I can’t be sure, either.” We started eating. She made some strange faces, trying to say it wasn’t bad. I snorted, emphasizing, “Without salt, spices, oil, or anything to properly cook with it, she didn’t have to baby my feelings, it tasted bad. Fair warning, the fruit is worse.” Shaking her head, she repeated it wasn’t bad, just very different. I said it was dry, heavy like a stone in the stomach, and hot from the rich mana. It was like desert in a meal. Snorting, she said some fruit juice to drink, sauce and moist bread, it would be really delicious, ir was just hard to get those kinds of things here. . . .
After our argumentative meal, where she ate everything, and after meditating, felt hot enough to use magick really quick, she took the bowl from my hands, sweating and straining. She told me to make that list, with the oils, cooking tools, and writing things for more, because she expected to trade with me a lot in the future.
Then, she created a spatial gate, stepped or fell through with a yelp, and vanished.
Okay, I take it back, she really could go too and from with an order for trade. Now, lets see if she could keep a deal with a monster.
Hmmm, what do I want: for food, cooking oil, spices, sauces that last a long time, juices or other drinks, and . . . . Flour or rather wheat seeds, oats, maybe milk or a cow who is giving milk . . . I finished the sheet.
I took 2 of the largest parts of the exoskeleton, like a giant flatter tray and a big bowl, and then went to an area not far from where I killed that critter, because this was the highest point on the shale, with a flat path going toward the safer region.
Here goes nothing!
Activating the paper, it vanished into itself. I set up wards and signals, even for spatial crossing, although I hadn’t actually use one before, and returned home.
. . .
It took a week before a tiny spatial ripple alerted me. I set one up in my home and each of my storage caves, just to be sure.
Travelling over, I found 10 people there calling out, “Hello! Anyone there? Delivery!” Someone said it had been an hour, should they just leave it here. “No way, I always get a signature.
I sighed, retrieved some big leaves, folded them into green clothes like a cloak tied with vines and called from below, they could consider the delivery accepted and just go.
The one wanting a signature tried to kindly guide me to a safe path up, but I said it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t want to make them wait.
He said he was hoping for a signature, but mostly he wanted to talk about the valuable parts up here, I was using like delivery platforms. If I wanted to make a deal, he’d be very willing to help me get what I might need.
Sighing, I asked if that little girl told them anything about me.
“Only that you are strong enough to survive here, but not a monster.”
I said I disagreed with her on that, because I had become a monster. He said he was certain that couldn’t be true. I jumped up, cracking the shale beneath me like broken tiles, landing on the surface opposite the ‘delivery platforms’ and said, “Don’t underestimate me. I’m not human any more, thus I am a monster.” They stared at me, wide eyed, gulping, and stammered, “Our mistake. Sorry to have offended.”
I waved it off, checked, and found everything on the list. I used magick, to keep my distance and signed with a simple X, followed by a squiggle from one corner, ending in a loop. It didn’t have anything to do with my name, but was easy to remember if I did this again. Then, with only the livestock on a long rope made of twisted vines, I collected the bowl on my back, and the plate with magick. I told them perhaps we could discuss business some other time. I’d just gotten a large delivery, my first since I started living out here.
Seeing me carrying it all on my back with physical strength and magick for the mooing cow and tray, I wished them safe travels, pointing out the most dangerous regions and my suggestion for the area safest for humans, if not traveling spatially. They could hunt and forage if they felt brave enough to try. I wouldn’t take offense if they wanted something rare from this deep in.
Their eyes were shining, up until something tried to kill the cow and I killed it with magick in the 2 seconds it took for it to get into range. I tossed it to them, and said a souvenir, if they wanted it, as my thanks for taking the risk to come this far for a delivery this big. They stared at the big creature in horror, and then collected it, planning on leaving quickly, since the protections they were in had protected them so far.
It was a pain in the butt go get that dumb cow all the way to my cliff, and a struggle and a half to set up a safe place for it on the ground. I needed better wards and spells, like cages with gates. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much more than I’d used. The spatial one was something I saw at the bank and the most important building where decisions and meetings with visitors happened, otherwise, I wouldn’t have known it existed. It would be nice to learn more magick, but experiments were dangerous. Just from my early mistakes in the cave, I knew it could go very wrong . . .
–