Sweat poured down my face as I jerked awake, wand already in my hand and pointing around the room in… what? Fear? Anger?

     Terror.

     The dread still filled my soul as I caught my breath, before slowly lowering the wand back down to the side table. Small blue eyes stared up at me from the table as Wilbur squeaked in concern.

     “I’m okay.” I said to myself, as much as I did to him. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

     Rubbing my eyes, I idly channeled enough mana to cast a small Mage Light spell, illuminating my room. It was looking much better than the first time I had woken up here, the remnants of the door had been tossed out and replaced with a curtain Ahn’Khareen had found somewhere.

     Rubbing my face, I stared at the little rat next to me. “Stay here Wilbur.”

     He squeaked in concern, edging a little closer to me and rubbing his non-existent whiskers.

     “No, I’ll be okay. I’m just going for a walk.”

     Wilbur cocked his head, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have said that he was doubting me.

     “I just need to clear my head.”

     Another squeak.

     “Don’t talk back to me.”

     Wilbur continued to be skeptical, despite being an undead rat that shouldn’t have the capability to have emotions. The little blue eye-flames seemed to bore into my soul as I slipped my robe and sneakers on, and after a few more seconds I rolled my eyes.

     “Fine, you can come along.”

     He squeaked happily, hopping off the side table and scurried up my robe to his normal place on my shoulder. I sighed but reached up and gently pat his tiny bone head, and he nuzzled my finger. There was no specific place I was planning to go, but I couldn’t get the dream out of my head and a burning need to just walk filled me.

     It wasn’t just a need to walk, my body was telling me to run, to get away from the goblins that still chased me through the shadowed and twisted trees of my dreams. They weren’t as bad now as they were months ago, but every now and again I just woke up and had to take a walk. It didn’t always help, but it did more times than not.

     Winding my way through the familiar corridors and rooms of Ahn’Khareen’s home made my racing heart start to slow down as I took in the familiar sights. I’d taken a turn down these passageways so often now that I could almost navigate them by heart, and before I knew where I was going, I was already at the library.

     The smell of old books constantly filled the room with leather, parchment, and ink, providing a reprieve of the scent of my own blood that lingered sometimes in the back of my head. I directed the light to hover near the ceiling above my favorite table and went to peruse the shelves.

     I still couldn’t read most of the books in the library, even though I was almost able to read and write Somarisian fluently. My elvish was coming along nicely, or so Ahn’Khareen had said, but even then, a lot of the tomes were still beyond my skill level. There were also many books in languages that I didn’t even know the name of, and the writing just looked like scribbles to me.

     Sometimes I just picked up a book that I couldn’t understand simply to read it for the images within, they were mostly sketches of bodies or spell matrices. I was getting much better at figuring out the anatomy of bodies, but almost all the spells I read were also too advanced for me.

     Not sure exactly which book I was going to read to distract myself, I was content with just browsing the shelves and running my fingers along the books.

     “What do you think Wilbur, The Principles of Magickal Mathematics, in both Theory and Practice?”

     The rat skeleton on my shoulder squeaked, and I nodded my head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Haupton’s On the Fundamental Differences Between the Skeletal and Musculature Systems of the Races of the Known World?”

     Another squeak.

     “Oh, how about The Collected Volumes of the Belosomarisian War and Related Miscellany by Montrimour?”

     I turned my head to see Wilbur glaring at me, blue flames tiny in their already small sockets.

     “Okay, okay. I guess you’re not interested in any of the classics tonight.”

     He bobbed his head in agreement, and I sighed theatrically. “That’s the problem with the youth of today, no respect for the words of their elders.”

     Wilbur reached over and, very gently, nibbled with his teeth at my neck. It didn’t hurt, but the little pricks of pressure indicated his displeasure with me.

     Even though I wouldn’t tell him it, the little rat’s presence along with the books in the library were going a long way to making me feel better. Already the nightmare was starting to fade into the haze of shapeless memory that swallowed most dreams.

     I had made two circuits of the library before I decided I wasn’t really in the mood to read any of the books in here right now. Not that they weren’t interesting, but they all required more brainpower than I could really put in right now to understand. I missed my fiction book collection that I had back home, all my science fiction and fantasy books I had gathered over years of reading. Or my phone, God how I missed my phone.

     Apparently, there were spells that could be used to fix things, but only if they were relatively simple, or the mage knew the exact way it should be put back together. I had absolutely no idea on how a phone was assembled, let alone how it worked, so I was out of luck there.

     What I would give even just to listen to some music right now.

     This was the longest I had gone without any kind of technology, and I had to admit I much preferred my life back on Earth. Technology, phones, fun books to read, hell, even actual toilets, and plumbing?

     Magic was amazing, but there was only so much it could do compared with actual technology. I mean, trying to learn anything without the internet was just painful, and it was tempered only by the fact that I still couldn’t fully figure out Ahn’Khareen’s sorting system. It wasn’t alphabetical nor was it by subject. I was sure there was a way to understand it, but despite my best efforts I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Now if I could only have Siri or some other kind of AI helper to try and-

     I paused as a thought struck me. That couldn’t work, could it?

     Turning speculative eyes on Wilbur, I considered the spell I had laid on his bones. I could admit that it was shoddy work at best. Something much more… sophisticated would have to be made. Would it be too much extra effort and work for such a small and, honestly, relatively worthless luxury?

     It would be hours, possibly days before I could get it working in the first place. I knew the basic layout, the matrices, and the formulas involved with it all, but the modifications necessary would add a lot of complexity. But it could also be a good test of some of my other ideas I had been having since coming to this world…

     I sighed and left the library, going to the kitchen to heat some water. Ahn’Khareen had never heard of coffee to my great discontent, but she did still have a stash of tea that was quite good and almost as strong.

     By the time I had made the tea, returned to the library, and had started looking through the books for the ones I thought could help, I had already forgotten about my nightmares.

--##--

     “It’s alive!” I shouted, throwing up my hands and spinning in ecstasy as the blue-eyed wolf slowly rose on the table before me.

     Of course, the mana cost took its toll on me, and with a wave of nausea and vertigo my legs gave out from under me, dropping me to the ground. I couldn’t find it in me to care though, cackling as I rolled on the cold, hard floor of the laboratory.

     I paused in my revelry as I saw Ahn’Khareen standing in the doorway to the lab, and I quickly got myself sitting on the ground, beaming up at her.

     “I did it!” I crowed, gesturing with one hand at the wolf. “After a week of non-stop study and work, I’ve done it!”

     “And you have made a mess of my laboratory as well.” She said, looking around that the piles of books nearby, dirty plates of food, and my rumpled nest of blankets and pillows that I had been using as a bed for the past week.

     “I’ll clean that up later.” Brushing the mess to the side, I pointed at my wolf, who was now sitting on the table, the bones of its tail wagging slightly. “But what do you think?”

     “It is much more competently made than your rat Wilbur was, but it is just-“ She cut herself off, green flames shrinking to points as she stared more intently at the undead wolf. “You have made modifications to the standard matrix.”

     “Yes! I did! It took me forever just to get the basics down, but I got it!”

     Ahn’Khareen cocked her head, and stepped further into the room, slowly pacing around the wolf’s skeleton. I was quite proud with my additions to the standard wolf’s skeleton matrix, and the utility they should hopefully bring to the table.

     “I am not quite sure I understand.” Ahn’Khareen said after a minute of study. “You haven’t reinforced any of the primary characteristics of the wolf, instead you have chosen to add… finding spells?”

     “It began when I couldn’t find anything in the library and decided that I needed to find a better way to find things. I thought about some of the things I used to have back home, and decided that while I didn’t have them here, I at least could try and use the same principles.”

     “I… see.” Ahn’Khareen said in the tone of voice reserved for people who didn’t know what somebody else was talking about.

     “Come on, I’ll show you!”

     Standing up, I beckoned to the wolf, who jumped down off the table and padded silently behind me as we walked to the library. When we got there, I shot a nervous look to Ahn’Khareen who was waiting expectantly, then turned back to the wolf and cleared my throat.

     “I need a book on skeletons.”

     The wolf cocked its head, looking up at me in a mixture of confusion and irritation, and I smiled in triumph.

     “You see, it responds to requests in the best way it knows how. If a request is too vague however, then it can’t follow through. Find me a book with wolf skeletons.”

     This time the wolf paused, then turned away from me and padded through the bookshelves until it stopped at one book, pointing with its nose. It repeated the process a couple more times, before returning to sit before me.

     “Now I need a book that has a spell matrix showing how to reanimate a wolf skeleton.”

     Dutifully, the wolf returned to the first book it had pointed out, as well as another book it had identified earlier.

     “Find me a book that has a spell matrix on reanimating a wolf skeleton and written in Somarisian."

     This time, only the first book was pointed at, and I turned back to Ahn’Khareen with a massive smile.

     “The Liber Mortuorum. I present to you, the Where Wolf!”

     It was stupid, but the name had gotten stuck in my head on the second day of work, and I hadn’t been able to think of anything else while I’d been crafting the modifications to the spell matrix.

     “An interesting concept. With your permission, I would like to see the spell matrix more clearly.”

     I looked at her, confused. “What do you mean? I mean, you are my teacher, so go ahead.”

     Ahn’Khareen sighed patiently. “It is considered impolite and improper to view another mage’s spell matrix without permission when it is an original design. There are ways to confound examination against those who do not have the same kind of moral compunctions, but I will have to each you later.”

     “Oh. Well, sure, go ahead.”

     She stepped forwards and speared the wolf with a stare, then made a sweeping motion with her hand. The wolf froze, and the spell matrix I had used on it appeared floating in mid-air like a blue hologram.

     I gaped at the use of magic like this, but Ahn’Khareen didn’t even stop to remark upon it, instead moving even closer to examine the floating lines of magical text arranged in a vaguely circular pattern.

     “Hm. Interesting. I can see where you have decided to modify the original matrix, here at the section regarding memory.”

     She pointed out one block of text, and I nodded.

     “It is not efficient. You can eliminate this line,” a bony finger traced several words. “As well as this one, this one, and that line. As it currently stands, those sections of the spell are causing the creation to hesitate and process your commands for longer than is required. Why did you decide on a visual form of identification for the books?”

     “I… I didn’t know there were any other kinds.”

     She tsked. “There is a certain value in doing these things by yourself, but there are spells which are much more effective and efficient. Use the spells which have already been created, save yourself the effort.”

     I remained quiet for a moment, then nodded. “I just wanted to do it myself.”

     A skeletal hand rested on my shoulder. “And that is nothing to be ashamed of. Many times in studying magic you will be forced to create a spell or modify one. However, my point was not to discourage you from doing this, but if there exists a spell that already performs the task you desire, then you should not spend valuable time and energy in recreating it. Focus your efforts on doing that which has not been done before.”

     She turned back to the spell matrix. “If you had asked, I would have directed you to various spells which could perform these tasks better. Your spell does an adequate job, but I am also seeing that there are far fewer tomes in this creation’s memory than there are in my library.”

     “That’s because I don’t know what most of them are.” I said simply. “I can’t read them.”

     “Again, you should have asked. I would have been more than willing to assist in the creation of this undead and it’s goal in knowing which tomes contained which kind of information.” Ahn’Khareen paused, mulling over her words.

     “Perhaps however,” she said slowly. “I should not give you access to every tome. There are lessons in this library that should not be learned on a whim. For now, I believe, the ones this creation has access to shall be enough for you.”

     Another swish of her hand, and the floating image of the spell matrix disappeared. “It is an adequate creation, better than your first effort. You are improving, and I encourage you to continue your path of discovery and experimentation. However, I would recommend you avoid deeming this particular creation the “Where Wolf.” The actual werewolf packs might find it offensive.”

     With that she turned and began to walk out of the library, leaving me stunned behind her.

     “Wait!” I called. “Werewolves? Like werewolves actually exist? Does that mean there are other things like vampires too?”

     Ahn’Khareen didn’t answer as she kept walking, and I hurriedly grabbed my things to chase after her, my new wolf padding softly behind me.

     “Come back! Are vampires real?”

YankeeDandy

It's been a bit of a hectic weekend for me, thus the shorter chapter. Still, I hope you all enjoy the chapter! Stay safe out there!