“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”

Jedi Master Yoda

“So, moving on. Exactly how big is your spatial vault?” He mentally queried, resigned to another expansion of his mental horizons in understanding reality related to his unique and revolutionary charge.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I responded telepathically, then grinned, activating the skill. The knowledge was intrinsic to the skill I received from the Lodestone Wyrm’s beast core. An invisible portal opened in front of where I had raised my arm, a black void of space undefined.

We both peered inside. But without a floor or walls to define the dimensions, no light that entered was reflected. “I’m not exactly sure,” I answered as I looked at the equally perplexed Namir.

I reached forward to put my hand in. However, Namir, never one to wait for answers he could discover on his own, had already thrown a snowball into the space before my hand could reach in. We watched the snow splatter against an invisible wall approximately 10 ft deep. A few more snowballs revealed that my spatial vault was a cube approximately 10 feet deep, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet high.

Our experiments with inanimate matter were completed; it was time to test it with a live subject. Namir stepped through the portal onto the snow-strewn floor.

Ding! Spatial Vault (Lv1 ->2)

He paced the dimensions, confirming what we had already worked out and lightly jumping to touch the ceiling. There was a weight to the skill now—a pressure from holding Namir within it. Unknowingly, I had created a smaller door-sized entry portal to my spatial vault, and with the levelling came the understanding or idea that the entry portal’s size was malleable. I decided to change that by expanding it and shrinking it to fit my needs, which were significantly smaller.

“Kai,” Namir commented, unimpressed by the small aperture he would have to squeeze through to escape. “Let’s not experiment with the new skill while I am within it.” He added dryly.

I nodded in response, returning it to what it was when we started.

“Not as large as the giants. But nothing to turn your nose up at considering the tier of the skill, the impossibility of gaining it and the fact that you only have it at level 1.” He answered, facing me once more. “Try closing it . . .” He started before stopping. “Let’s test that with an animal first. I am no magician, but it would be wiser to test that function on something else first. Next question, can you step inside your own vault?” He asked as he departed the vault through the portal.

I shrugged and stepped forward into the space.

Ding! Spatial Vault (Lv1 ->3)

The levelling surprised me, but the early levels in any skill were always the easiest to obtain. Novel uses of the skills helped to propel them higher. Every action we had taken so far had been another new use of the skill. Stable, the black void supported me, though I found it terribly disconcerting. I would have to add a veneer of stone or wood to help differentiate the spatial vault from the void I appeared to be in and outline the dimensions, including where the walls and corners were. It was difficult to describe the lack of existence the space seemed to exist within. I had not noticed it in the Giant’s Vault, dressed as it was in stone flooring and walls.

“Kai?” Namir called out loud rather than within his mind. His need overpowering our desire for secrecy.

I turned around to reply, only to see Namir’s startled gaze searching the space I had entered, his clawed hand reaching forward as if to grab me back from within a vault he could no longer find.

“Yes?” I asked, but even with his supersenses, he did not seem to hear and rather than raise his heartbeat higher, I stepped back through the portal returning to the world of the Compass Kingdoms.

“You disappeared.” He exclaimed as I returned to reality.

“The portal?” I asked.

“Everything, there was no portal, no space, no light or sound escaped. It was as if you had disappeared.” He quickly explained his understandable fear that if I had disappeared, I might not be coming back.

“It was still there, and I could see and hear you when I turned around,” I explained. Unshaken by the surprise, I had not even seen or experienced, at least not from this perspective within the vault.

“The last test is to place an item within the vault, reduce the portal entry size to the size of the item and then reach in and take it.” He detailed a combination of all previous tests and handed me a well-formed snowball to test it on.

I closed my eyes to concentrate. The skill allowed me to understand my space and orientate it to be placed wherever I needed it. The entry portal likewise could be positioned wherever I wished it relative to the spatial vault. If I wanted to open it up on the side of the wall halfway up, that was a possibility. However I could also place the portal to the floor of the spatial vault in the air so that I was placing the snowball on the floor for later retrieval.

Eyes still closed to help me manipulate the extra layer to reality I opened a portal sized for only the snowball in my hand and placed it within. I opened my eyes to witness the action and final completion. The snowball and my hand disappeared instantly before my hand returned empty. It was not quite instant materialisation, but close enough. I would have to build shelving along with the stone and wood veneer I planned to allow me to pull out the number of items I planned on placing within the spatial vault. Or if I pretended to place the opening within a bag, I would now have my own bag of holding.

This was awesome!

But time it had been passing us by.

“Enough experimentation for this evening, perhaps.” I pointed out.

Our time on watch would soon be ending, and there was no surprise to be had from another ace in my deck if it was not kept secret. We sat in silence, contemplating the possibilities while we waited to be relieved. Once we had left the giants behind, I could place the sledge in it for one. But there were so many more possibilities if I was a little more adventurous with its use.

. . .

Ding! Telepathy (Lv7 ->8)

. . .

At least the mental conversation was worth another level.

. . .

It was not much later that we were relieved from our watch by Bjorn. Namir and I shared Bjorn’s bed topping and tailing when he exchanged with us for the watch. I was soon asleep despite the excitement, though I woke when he returned and watched as he took Ivar’s bed, who replaced him. I assume the rest swapped between theirs as they each woke the next giant in rotation, but I slept through it. Revelling in the warmth and the insulation from the never-ending wind of the endless ice the giant’s vault provided, I had a lovely sleep. We left early in the morning after breaking our fast, the giants keen to make it home as soon as possible.

. . .

We walked across an empty land, a desert, despite the abundant water locked in ice. The temperature kept it locked away. The only liquid water was the sweat on our backs as Namir made me run to keep up with the group. There would not be time for soul gazing while I struggled to keep up with the larger giants and higher-level adult beast kin.

“Where exactly are we heading,” I asked, looking to the horizon to see if I could see where exactly it was we were heading. Perhaps the view was better from their elevation, but I could see nothing more than what we had been passing for a while now.

“Somewhere only we know.” Erik smiled in response.

That might have been the case before they met me, but I was busy mapping my surroundings with as many sensory skills as possible and re-creating a mental map of our passage. I might not know where we were going, but I knew where we had been, and eventually, the two would join up.

“I’m getting tired,” I explained honestly. My little legs had to do ten paces to their one. It was impossible to keep up this pace forever, no matter my stats in vitality and endurance or my skills focused on running. I watched my stamina continue its steady march downward.

Although the repetitive dings from our training or rather traversing these artic conditions offered a small warming of my soul despite the freezing of my body.

. . .

Dart (Lv25 ->26)

. . .

Ding! Cold Tolerance (Lv3 -> 4)

. . .

Ding! Flash Step (Lv15 ->16)

. . .

Ding! Iron Man (Lv69 ->70)

. . .

Ding! Air stepping (Lv7 ->8)

I had been surreptitiously using the skills to keep up with them for as long as possible, but I was running out of stamina and psi to smooth my course.

“What’s your home like?” I asked.

“The Thorpe is dug down into the stone and ice in layers. That’s why you won’t see it on the horizon. We have even grown a few hardy plants protected from the icy winds and warmed by hot waters from the depths of the lodestone.” Erik continued to explain what we had to look forward to. It sounded almost like an oasis of warmth within the wintry wasteland that was the endless ice.

Eventually, Bjorn took pity on my struggling form and offered me a ride again in the sleigh to my Grandfather’s objections. “He can still keep up.” Namir was never one to skip a step for the sake of training.

“Surprisingly, maybe.” Bjorn seemed surprised by the possibility. “But he is still a child. It's his choice. He adds so little weight at all, I notice it not.”

Unabashedly, I jumped at the chance to escape the freezing cold and leapt onto our sledge Bjorn was pulling. I had other things I could do.

Ding! Cold Tolerance (Lv4 -> 5)

A short shake later to shed as much of the snow I could, and I was snuggled down into the furs, kept warm by Nyx’s presence. She was less than keen at the arrival of my cold and swiftly dampening form as the remains of snow I had failed to shake from my encrusted clothing began to melt.

A surreptitious use of my mana soon silenced her snarling complaints with a blast of heat that had her snuggling up to me in contentment, the water quickly drying away. The heat trapped by the furs, I wriggled around to get comfortable as the feeling returned to my extremities.

“Nyx, keep guard.” I smiled as I handed her some more jerky. Ever compliant for food, she took up residence on my chest, her head snaking down to nestle in along my collar bones, her head resting above one of my mana cores.

Idly, I wondered whether it would be possible to open a portal to my spatial vault to allow her somewhere to play, but I thought better of experimenting with that idea on a moving vehicle, no matter how slow. I could easily imagine the portal opening only to be left behind or, worse, it somehow slicing through the sledge as it remained stationary. Another idea to test out later when on watch if we did not make it to the Thorpe this evening.

What I could do was go for a walk.

An astral one.

. . .