It had finally gotten out of that cave and now it could start to absorb some magical power. It still seemed unable to absorb this worlds energy but even on a different world or even another dimension, most likely starlight would fall down on it once it was in the open which could then be absorb and turned into energy. It was just a shame that it had been stuck in a cave and no starlight would fall on it prior to this.

Sadly, the container it was now stuck in, a human skull, had close to zero magic capacity and the amount it could store was miniscule at best and it could work no real magic with it.

It needed a conduit something to channel or store the energy through, but at the moment with its weak powers it was close to impossible to force its will on another living being so it needed someone willing to help it. The kid had been uncooperative as of the last ten days since they met. It could also not for its life understand how the kid with no apparent powers could keep on reading its thoughts, as of late it didn’t even dare to think whenever they were speaking with each other.

True to its word, it had used a simple spell that worked as a lure to gather up small rodents for the brat to capture and eat every night. Unfortunately, it knew that this was at best only a stalling tactic as eventually it would most likely be tossed away as the boy grew.

Eventually a night would come when the lure spell would not work as with how weak it was it could only attract small rodents from at most a few hundred meters away so it was fairly obvious as to what would happen if none where close by when it used it's spell.

Having bombarded the stinky brat every night with promises it had now finally managed to make a small crack in the snotty nosed brats caution towards it. The more it thought about this whole mess the angrier it got at Matthias who was not performing the way it wanted him to.

A hand suddenly grasped the skull as it was trying to format a new plan on how to convince the boy.

“Oh, hey there Matthias, I was just thinking about you.”

“Hmm, you trying to plot something bad again aint you!” Matthias stared suspiciously while grabbing a bit tighter onto the skull as a way to threaten it.

“Now, now Matthias my friend, my best bud, why would you ever say that when you know I have only your best interest in my mind. Why, just now I was thinking of a new and better way to get you a lot of meat you see.”

“You really did? Your not lying to me are you?” Some drool gathered in the corner of Matthias mouth and he slurped to prevent it from escaping from his lips.

“Why would I ever need to lie to you? I am as straight as an arrow in flight! But you see to work this kind of magic I need your help Matthias. Only a big boy like you could pull this off.”

“I don’t know…I know I can’t trust someone like you.”

“Hey when have I eve…” A high pitch shout from far of cut of the conversation.

“Matty you there?!” Following the words steps coming closer could be heard from close by.

“Yeah, I’m here” Responded Matthias as he put the skull back down on top of the tree stump he had left it on for the day, the skull wanted to stay outside to as it called it, bathe in the starlight so he never kept it inside his tent. Which had gotten him some strange looks and questions from the others in the caravan as well not everyone would want to carry a skull around with them.

“Uhh, your still hanging around that creepy skull you found a while back. I don’t get why your bringing it along, even after I told you that a skull is the head of a dead person.” The high pitched voice appeared to belong to a little girl that was just as scrawny as Matthias and might even be called cute, once she grew into those big eyes that seemed to take up most of her face.

“Elsa, it’s my lucky charm ever since I found it I’ve been able to find meat every night. Of course, I gotta bring it along.”

“You know about that…you really got to teach me how you do that, you see I’ve been with the caravan for two years now and I can count on my two hands all the rodents that I’ve caught in that time.”

“I just got lucky, there is nothing to teach really, you see…”

“Stop, stop, stop. I’ve been watching you for the last four days and it has nothing to do with luck, the rodents seem to gather on their own towards you. So how do you do it? Are you using some kind of bait? Like cheese…no you couldn’t afford using cheese as bait and besides there is almost no cheese to be found in the caravan…so to use it as bait would be impossible…did you stumble upon some strange plant that attract rodents? Or did you find something in the forest that they love to eat? Now tell me or I’ll tell the others on you and they’ll most likely beat the answer out of you!” Elsa was a quick-witted girl and if nothing else she had quite the feisty temper.

“No don’t tell the others, especially Jens he’d probably just give me a black eye and steal all my rodents if he knew I was getting meat every night…”

“Then tell me your secret and start sharing or I’ll spill the beans!” Elsa’s small fist was held in a threatening manner combined with a stare that showed that she meant what she said.

“Alright alright…what if…what if I told you…” Elsa was his only friend in the caravan and she had told him many secrets…so there was no danger in sharing his own right? “That, that I was using magic...”

“Pffffff, hahaha, your telling me…you Matthias the scrawny kid picked up after trying to steal some bread and put to work in this caravan as a mean of living know magic?” Holding her stomach and unable to stop herself a bell like laughter filled the surrounding while she tried to keep on talking. “hahaha, you mean magic? As in real magic? Hihihihi, Matthias you know I know a little about magic, and…hehe…you see almost no one in this country can actually use real magic.” Calming down she started to lecture Matthias.

“You see to do magic you need to have a talent for it, but even then, there are almost no places that teaches magic. Magic users are extremely rare and it takes a long, long time to learn it. You’d have to at least go to one of the academies to even learn the basics and only the fancy pants can go there. Since going means you’d have to pay extremely high tuition fee’s while you’d be unable to work since you’d be studying, so making money while going there is almost impossible. And now you want me to believe that you the son of a kitchen maid that can barely count to ten can do magic?”

Matthias felt like he wanted to crawl under a rock as his face, burned hotly like never before while his cheeks were beat red. “I can actually count to fourteen now after jack taught me for a while! And it’s true it is magic! I…I just never said it was me doing the actual magic…”

Elsa stared suspiciously at Matthias, not really believing a single word he was saying. Angry at the mistrust and the words that seemed to poke at his pride as a man Matthias then went and picked up the skull.

“Skull you better start working some magic and show Elsa that I aint lying!”

“Why are you so mad at me for? I haven’t done anything…besides it’s not like I am your servant or anything and have to do whatever you say…”

“Do it now or I put you inside my bag filled with used underwear!”

A weird look crept over Elsa’s face as she looked at Matthias that had seemingly gone mad and started yelling at a skull for no apparent reason. After threatening the skull for a bit more something did happen however. A small letter seemed to be drawn on top of the skulls forehead and it shined with a soft blue light briefly before disappearing. With a shocked face and a mouth wide opened that could probably allow a whole apple to be put inside she stared with disbelief. She knew the skull had always been close by when Matthias captured the rodents but this...

A small squeak could be heard as five small rodents of different size and shapes ran up to them and then just seemed to stand there in a daze. Picking up a rock from nearby Matthias made quick work of them and then looked at Elsa.

“This is how you do it?” Was all she could muster to say.

“Yeah, like I said, I get them with magic, just never said I was the one using it.” He said with puffed out cheeks. “It only works for a few minutes so you gotta be quick or they’ll get away.”

“This was not how I imagined it, when I tried to imagine how you did it. Is that skull some kind of a magical artefact? But why would someone make a magical artefact that gathers rodents…it makes no sense”

“No, uh you see…meh it’ll be easier to just show you then explain.” With those words Matthias tossed the skull towards Elsa. She caught it and looked at it perplexed at what would happened next.

“Hello, litt…” An unknown voice resounded inside her head and with a scream she dropped the skull and looked at it fearfully.

“Wha, wha, whaaat was that!?” Was all she could muster.

“Well you see, the skull isn’t a magical artefact and it seems to be, well kind off...being alive.” After a short explanation of what Matthias knew about the skull the shock and fear in Elsa seemed to have settled down for now.

“So, your telling me, it’s been wanting to make a deal with you since the very beginning and you’ve turned it down to use it as a rodent gatherer?”

“Well, yeah but you see the skull seems to be filled with evil thoughts and trying to trick me all the time!”

“But Matthias if you made a magical contract with it, it would be bound to do whatever was in that contract, even a god would have to follow such a contract. At least thats what aunt Lusie told me!” A debate between the two younglings seemed to have been sparked as their differing opinions clashed.

Well, well, well it seemed like this girl was much more useful then that ignorant brat that still smelled of his momma’s milk. Perhaps its wish would be granted much sooner than it had been expecting.