Fate

The knight was still laying on his back in front of the burning hut.

“Now bitch, still struggling to man up and kill me?” He spat towards me.

“Still pissing yourself, because you don’t know what you’re facing.” I shook my head.

“Haahhhaahha! So funny!” His spittle was all over the place.

“I pledge to Solana, the ultimate power of change!” I took a deep breath.

The man started to cough as he looked at me with wide eyes.

“May you see the pain and suffering of those that you hunt, and see the errors of your ways! Nobody should be judged because of what he is.” I raised may arms up into the air.

The jaw of the knight dropped and he tried to scramble backwards.

“May the goddess of change judge you for the things you’ve done!” I roared while I looked him deep into the eyes.

Then for few moments nothing happened.

“Haahhhaahhhhaaa! Imbecile idiot!” He glared at me.

Then a light black and yellow haze started to waver around the knight. His eyes were wide again. Then he rolled to the left, but the haze was clingy, following him over the meadow.

“Aaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” His eyes looked as they would pop out of his sockets soon.

The yellow parts of the brightened to a degree that they started to hurt the eyes, while the black seemed to suck in all light around them. A few moments later cracking metallic sounds started to torment my ears. Magic of a intensity that I’d never seen before started to assault my magic sense. White stars started to dance in front of my eyes.

“My armor! It’s an ancient family heirloom. Curse you by the power of the Aaaahhhhhhhh!” The man wailed out in pain.

His armor and even the remains of his sword started to crack, with a thick cloud of draconic magic seeping out of them. It drifted towards the scrambling knight. Somehow I couldn’t take my eyes from the scene as the man trashed and yelled on the ground a few steps in front of me, I wasn’t able to move. The rest of his armor and swords crumbled into dust, to leave another cloud of magic wavering in the air. Then he started to change, scales growing all over his body and his head was losing it’s human proportion, changing into a sleek lizard head. Suddenly I realized that this started to look like the lizards we encountered at the ruins by the volcano. It was much smaller though. They could breathe hot air! Then the lizard started to scramble to his feet, looked at me, hissing. I stared back, feeling that the control over my body came back. Then the lizard broke eye contact and shambled into to the burning hut.

There was still magic lingering in the air, so I focused to ignore it for now.

“Let’s leave. There’s nothing we could do here anymore. Hail Solana!” I looked back at the others.

“Hail Solana!” they cried out in unison.

Then I collected three of the spears. They were no special weapons, but at least a way to fight. As long as my mana was that low using claws and scales was risky at best. Maybe I could repair my halberd with the shaft at some point. Perhaps the next winter.

“Take this.” I gave one of the spears to Alenae.

She took it with a nod.

“You get one as well.” I gave Atan a spear as well.

He took it with gleaming eyes. Boys.

“You both need to train to use them properly, so keep away from the fights for now, but it won’t hurt if you have something to keep an enemy at bay for a few moments.” I cross my arms below my chest and looked Atan deep in the eyes.

“Yes, Madam!” He bowed to me.

While it was weird that someone is treating me like that, I was fine with it as long as it kept him out of trouble. Taking him with us would put him at risk, there was no point in denying that. Keeping the risk as manageable as possible was the least I could do.

Milly nodded at me with a wry smile. We picked up our baggage and set out to the east.

“We’re going to walk till evening. We need to get some distance from this place.” I looked back at the others.

They had had followed my lead and were still overwhelmed, staring into space. I took care to skirt rough terrain for now. Nobody spoke a single word for the next hours. The day was nearing it’s end as we reached the edge of the highlands. We found a decent place to rest between a rocky outcropping and some firs.

“Let’s get ready for the night.” I took a deep breath.

Still silent we set up the camp and ate something for dinner. Nobody had been following us so far. Atan had no problems keeping up with Alenae, who still was the slowest of us. Now we had two people to keep an eye on. I hoped that it would work out somehow.

“This was. Intense.” Milly looked at me with a shudder.

“It was. I never really believed something would happen at all.” I shook my head.

“The magic was awesome!” Tilly looked at me with wide eyes.

“This was something that I heard stories about, but I saw it with my own eyes!” Alenae had wrapped her arms around her.

“A godly intervention!” Loraline looked at me with wide eyes.

“I’ve always thought such things were made up by the clergy.” Caroline shook her head.

“I nearly have pity with that scumbag.” Milly looked down to her feet.

“A goddess came to punish the murderers of my parents!” Atan looked at me with wide eyes.

“Her reputation with nobility isn’t that good.” Alenae shuddered.

“Solana doesn’t care about social standing, according to the stories about her.” Loraline scratched her head.

“It was totally badass!” Tilly looked up into the sky.

“We asked for her judgment and we should accept it. There’s no way we could know what would happen.” I looked at Milly.

“Sure, but. Well. No but. It’s like it is, and maybe he learns something from it.” She looked me deep into the eyes.

“I’m not sure about that. We’re going to pull something to get him off our tail tomorrow. Killing him now feels wrong, so we should avoid fighting him.” I looked back with a solemn nod.

“Do you think he will follow us?” Alenae shot me a concerned look.

“He is going to try to get his revenge I think. At least as soon as he stops panicking.” I shrugged.

“Do you think it’s a problem in the long run?” Milly tilted her head with a slight frown.

“I’m not really sure how good he his with tracking with his new senses, but I think it will take some time to get used to them, which should us give a chance to get rid of him. Later the track will be gone. Of course we should keep an eye on what happens behind us.” I shrugged.

“So we try the usual stuff for trackers with a keen sense of smell?” Loraline looked at me tilting her head.

“Basically. There’s nothing else we could do. We will get high up in the mountains and as we found these lizards near the hot springs, maybe crossing some glacier will help to distract him. As we have to that anyway at some point there isn’t much harm done.” I pulled my legs to my tummy.

“It’s just another pursuer in the end.” Tilly laid an arm around Milly.

“Reassuring.” Milly chuckled as she returned the hug.

“We should get ready for the night now. Tomorrow will be a long day, and I don’t want to have unnecessary rests for the next days at least. I take the first watch.” I got to my feet to sneak a peek on our surroundings.

They sorted out the shifts, and Atan took part as well. He might not be much use in a fight, but giving him something to do would distract him a bit and in the end he might hear or see something to alert the rest. As long as he managed to keep up over the day all was fine.

Loraline joined me in the first shift and after a few hours it was time to wake Milly, Caroline and Atan.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the blanket after I snuggled myself beside Tilly.

The next morning I realized that my mana regeneration seemed to have crossed a threshold. It was fast enough now in the night to pick at the mark in addition to heal the stab wound at my shoulder. As I focused to have a look at my ever depleted mana pool, there was something new! Well, it wasn’t new, but the spell I got in those ancient ruins where we met these fire lizards was glowing brightly! As I had some time until I had to get up I started to examine it a bit closer. It was filled with mana, topped up and I had an inkling that I could use it if I wanted. The mana inside let the spell glow with a violet aura and after some poking I noticed violet mana inside the spell. A spell with an own internal mana storage? As far as I knew it couldn’t be a spell then. At least it was something driven by mana, and it couldn’t be mine, since it was vastly too weak. There was plenty of powerful mana in the air yesterday noon though. Had it been sucked into that ability? I hoped Solana wasn’t mad at me, well I still looked like I did before, so I was probably safe. The smaller mana drain could be activated as well. I wondered what it would do. It was going to take some time to explore this deeper. Unfortunately time was of essence at the moment. Maybe I should take some time reading in our book sooner or later. Discussing this with Tilly and Alenae was an option as well.

As the rest was starting to have breakfast I shelved this for later. Maybe I find some time for this during our breaks. I had plenty of time for such things the weeks before. Timing is as always of essence.

We spent the day getting across a mountain ridge and finally made our camp above a small river cutting his way down into the plains. We found a wide ledge about sixty meters above the bottom of the valley as we climbed down into the valley. The path crossed the place, but it was nice place to camp as a rocky outcropping shielded it partially from above.

“Let’s call it a day. We might be able to continue for an hour, but in this terrain it would be difficult to find a better place to rest.” I put down my backpack at the sheer rock face under the outcropping.

“It’s probably a good idea. The valleys slopes are steep and we won’t make it out today. Tomorrow we could easily cross it. We would be camping by the stream otherwise.” Loraline put down her backpack as well.

“I’m thinking about putting up another viewpoint for the mirror tomorrow, at a point where we can observe the way down this slope pretty well.” Milly looked at me.

“Sounds good. The old place probably won’t be helpful anymore, and we have to expect someone following our tracks the next days.” I spread a blanked on the ground next to me.

“I’m going to read a bit until dinner.” Tilly sat down on my blanket, getting the dragon book out of her bag.

“Fine. I’m going to check for some strange mana that got stuck into an ability of mine. It probably happened yesterday at the event.” I sat down beside Tilly.

“We take care of setting up the camp.” Milly nodded at us.

There wasn’t that much to do. Setting up the tents was routine by now, and it won’t hurt if Alenae and Atan get a grasp on it as well. We were slowly running out of space in the tents though. Fortunately the watch needn’t a place to sleep. Usually the watch took the tent from their relief. It was especially helpful in cold nights, as the tent hadn’t to warm up as much as if it had been empty for hours.

“Is it about that ability you got recently? What happened?” Tilly smiled at me.

“There is mana on the inside now. I should be able to find out more about this thing as I can feel the mana inside. There are addition details, but I only noticed it this morning. It’s time for some meditation.” I smiled back.

“Sure. Keep me posted!” She put the tome on her lap.

“Of course. It seems like I could actually use it, but without knowing what it is supposed to do it would be a waste of mana. Especially at the moment as the healing on that mark drains everything we recover.” I frowned.

“It’s a literal pain, but getting rid of the marks is still worth it.” Tilly started to leaf through the book.

“I’m not complaining about loosing the mark, it’s the way to do it that gets on me and it’s going to take plenty of time. Fortunately the pain is much more bearable now, but it still wakes me up every time, and actually having some mana in a fight would be nice too.” I frowned at the slave mark.

“Sure, even if it’s still not possible to manifest something beyond touch. Alenae told me that you need at least yellow mana to pull up something at a distance, and it will get better with the more powerful types of mana. Even if it is draining, the mana is doing something important for us now.” She gave me another smile.

“I agree. Still I’d like to have more mana for experimenting with the spells and abilities I have and a good nights sleep? I’d give an empire for that.” I closed my eyes.

“This is interesting ...” Tilly’s voice trailed off.

I started to focus on my mana and finally was able to blend out the noise of the others. It seemed like the mana inside this ability was resting, not like inside my mana pool. I’d like to know how much it had grown in the last months, but probably it was still smaller than before the transformation. It may be more magic energy in total, but it was difficult to get a grip on it as I had no idea how it would feel topped up. Back to the mana in the ability. Fortunately it somehow illuminated the inner structure of the ability to a degree. It would have been way better to see the mana at work, but it would probably empty the storage. There was the other mana input which would take only a sliver of the mana. I could at least try that one once or twice. Still it made no sense to use it without some idea what it might do. Using a magical ability or spell with out a proper target would cause it to fail. I could still learn a bit about it, which was okay as long as I could just wait for my mana to refill, but the resource in the ability seemed finite. I could see two more inlets for mana at the storage, which were very similar to the inlets at the surface. They were connected somehow. I decided to go for the cheaper use of this ability first. It wouldn’t be that much of a waste if it failed, but on the other hand it might happen that playing around with too much would lead to not to be able to use the big shot. The amount of mana stored was way more powerful that the mana in my pool. I had no idea if I would be able to refill it again. As long as the removal of the mark kept me low on mana there was no way to tell. Waiting for another godly intervention seemed to be kind of pointless as well. I focused on examining the cheaper application then.

After a while I was sure that it would provide information about something, probably a legal target for the mayor ability. Why was there an extra way to check for it? There had to be something that wasn’t obvious, maybe some magical property? I’d have to compare a legit target to one that could not be targeted with my magical perception at some point. I would at least try this one as there was would be nothing harmful about it.

I felt something irritating in my mouth. Opening my eyes a saw Milly’s face right in front of me while her tongue was exploring my mouth.

“Ummm?” I kissed her back after a few moments, blushing.

“It’s dinner time.” She let go of me.

Fortunately Atan was busy helping Loraline with the dinner preparations, even if he wouldn’t have been able to see much, as Milly had covered the scene up.

“Thanks for telling me.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind. I’m glad to help.” She gave me an impish smile.

We had dinner a few minutes later.

“Found out something?” Tilly looked at me with a smile.

“Not much, but I’m going to try something after dinner.” I smiled back at her.

“Nothing dangerous I hope.” Milly perked up.

“It’s information gathering. The only harm would be that I could find out something you’re hiding.” I grinned at Milly.

“That’s bad enough.” She frowned at me.

“The main part of this ability uses vast amounts of mana. I’d like to be able to make use of it. The sooner the better. It might give us an edge at some point.” I looked at the others.

“You can try it on me, I don’t care. As long as you tell me what you’ve found.” Tilly shrugged.

“Having a powerful magical ability at our disposal makes sense. I’m willing to let you try it on me as well.” Alenae gave me a solemn nod.

“We should be able to use anything we have at our disposal.” Caroline nodded.

“What does it look for?” Atan looked at me with wide eyes.

“I’m trying to find out what it does. I didn’t have enough mana at my disposal until now to even try it. I don’t know if it about people at all, but this probing is cheap enough to try at least once.” I nodded at him.

“Ohh! Then I want to help as well!” He grinned eagerly.

“While I have things I don’t want anyone to know, it would be stupid to ignore this ability of yours.” Loraline looked me in the eyes.

“How about I talk to everyone private first about my findings? I’ve no idea what it is about. I don't think it’s something obvious, as wouldn’t make much sense to use magic for that.” I looked at Milly.

“Well. I’m still not comfortable with this, but we shouldn’t throw away something useful. Talking about the findings in private sounds like a good idea in case it’s something embarrassing.” Milly nodded.

“I’ve found some information about those fire lizard in our book. While they’re not dragons, they seem to have draconic ancestors. The females are smaller than the males. The ones we fought were grown up males. He is a female as far as I can tell, they have slightly differing coloration. Female fire lizards are quite rare. I wonder if she’s going to lay eggs at some point.” Tilly giggled.

We went silent for a few moments.

“So they are going to chase him.” I shuddered.

“Well.” Milly looked at me shaking her head.

“Lilly. Try that ability now, I’m going to watch the magic.” Tilly looked at me expectantly.

“Then get ready, I’m going to focus as long as the magic is active. No questions until I’m finished.” I looked at the others.

They nodded. As I could see everyone from the place I was sitting, I triggered the ability. A sliver of mana surged into the ability.

As I looked around I saw a faint green aura around each of the others. I looked more closely at Alenae. After a few moments I felt sure I could use the main ability on her. Atan was a legit target as well. Looking at Milly I was sure it won’t work. Looking at Loraline and Caroline they were again valid targets. Finally Tilly was no target again. I was sure she would complain.

Focusing on the main ability itself next, it became clear that this was a kind of offer or contract, and the structures in the ability were really complex. Then the probe terminated and it went all dark again.

I opened my eyes again and everyone was eyeing me up expectantly.

“It wasn’t something confidential I think.” I rubbed my chin.

“I could see the magic spread out to up to let’s say ten meters in front of you. Then you focused on each of us. The structures were complex and contained many components I don’t know, it’s advanced stuff.” Tilly looked at me with wide eyes.

“That’s what happened basically. All of you were surrounded by a similar aura, that’s nothing confidential, as it was the same for all of you. Then I got something strange. Some of you are valid targets for the main ability, others are not. The main ability is some offer or contract. I think it would do no harm to tell all of you who might be targeted and who not.” I looked around.

“It would help to narrow down what this is all about. I’m for disclosing the results.” Tilly looked at Milly.

“Yeah. There is no harm in that information.” Milly nodded.

The rest nodded as well.

“Now Milly and Tilly can’t be targeted. The rest can.” I shrugged.

“That’s unfair!” Tilly frowned at me.

“It might have something to do with you having a mana pool, and the others not. That’s at least an obvious difference.” Alenae smiled at Tilly.

“Then I fortunately don’t have to decide on your offer.” Milly smiled at me happily.

“Contracts are serious stuff.” Alenae looked at me solemnly.

“What do you know about magical contracts?” I nodded at Alenae.

“Well. For one it’s a two step process usually and as far as I know they are usually spells and not abilities, so I might be wrong about that. When you activate such an spell, you usually can decide how it works. The contract should be balanced to be stable. For one the one who gets the less out of it may be able to break the contract at some point, usually when it forces him to take risks. Unstable magical contracts are prone to be brought down by external magical force. Someone could break it in a way that another similar contract between the involved parties won’t be possible for a long time. The target has to willingly accept the contract and is informed about the terms. As a contract has usually benefits for both sides, breaking magical contracts between allies usually weakens both parties, so balancing them is important in the long run.” Alenae gave me a small smile.

“Then what do you think I should do with this.” I looked at Alenae.

“Well. Abilities are usually much simpler to use than spells, so I can’t say much about the options you have. The spells are more versatile and tricky to use. The only way to find out more about it is to use it. The target has always the choice to refuse the offer, so I’d say there is not much of a risk. I’m willing to offer myself as the target as it’s only fair to be the one who suffers in case I’m wrong. I’m sure I’m right, but on the other hand I’ve no personal experience with such powerful spells or abilities. There might be details I don’t know about, especially because of the circumstances you got the ability. Event if I refuse to accept the contract, you will probably know much more about this ability of yours afterwards.” She looked me straight into the eyes.

“I’m not sure how to continue, but need some time to think about this. It would be better to be less tired for that, but waiting until this mess with the slave mark is might take a while.” I looked down at my feet.

“While there might be a risk, I think we should try it. As far as I understood messed up contracts are usually unstable and we might get rid of that with some effort. As long as it’s a good contract where everyone gets something out of it I’m good. Contracts are not evil.” Milly gave me a solemn nod.

“I’d say try to sleep over it and as long as Alenae consents go for it. At least we know what it does after that.” Tilly looked at Alenae.

“We don’t have to hurry, but it might be that the storage of the ability may leak over time. Lilly didn’t mention changes to this morning, so it won’t be a matter of days and even weeks. You should have an eye on the ability for now.” Alenae looked at me.

“I’m not doing it today, especially being so far south. We should use that small river down below to cover our tracks, even if it’s cold.” I grinned at Tilly.

“Awww!” She frowned at me.

“We should get some time to experiment after that, as our pursues would hopefully need some time to backtrack us.” I stuck out my tongue at Tilly.

“These rivers are cold!” She glared daggers at me.

“We have date to swim together, you remember?” I winked at her.

“You’re sooo mean!” She huffed and turned her head away.

“We don’t know when we cross a creek or river that size again, and they won’t be warmer most of the time.” Loraline chuckled.

“Don’t you all argue with me!” Tilly groaned, but couldn’t hide a twitching of her lips.

“Then its swimming time tomorrow.” I grinned evilly at Tilly.

Tilly stuck out her tongue at me.

“Let’s call it a day and get ready for the night.” Milly ruffled Tilly and I.

"Watches as usual." I nodded.