I opened my eyes and was almost blinded. It seemed like everything was crystallized in a glass. I am not sure how, but I could feel Stell beside me. I looked over and saw him shielding his eyes and bending down. He was reaching for a blade of the bright lime-green grass. The edges look sharp as a knife.
"Be careful, Stell," I said to him as I started putting my hand out to stop him.
'It is fine, Dak. I will be careful but use your mind to talk right now. We do not know what the people are like around here or the animals. I also do not see Meso anywhere around us, but I can feel him.' -Stell.
'I am still here, and communicating like this is a good idea.' -Meso.
Stell gently pushed on the blade of grass, and it flexed as a typical blade would. Then Stell pulled his finger back quickly with a frown. He had got his finger too close to the edge, and it had sliced him. It was nothing serious, but a real reminder that we were not on Loranth anymore.
The area around us was grassy and rolling hills and off to our left was a dark sparking forest. To the right was more of that blinding razor grass. I closed my eyes and listened. I could hear a buzzing hum come from the direction of the crystal forest. It was not a loud or harsh sound, just a low hum.
'The Smell is coming from that forest, and it smells sweet!' -Stell.
It was strange that the sound was soft to me, and the smell is sweet to Stell.
'The sound is soft and calm.'
'If magic is being used towards a Good end, it will smell and sound better depending on how pure the intentions are. Vice versa for Evil magic, the smell and sounds become more violent, the more impure the intentions.' -Meso.
'The idea is not to let the bad ones dominate entire planes, or when you come back to visit, you might find yourself in an extremely uncomfortable situation. We do not care either way, which controls a plane, but we find it quite bothersome to find a new pair of partially capable hosts. So we give you some guidance when the situation warrants it. -Meso.
That was some relief. At least we knew they were no trying to kill us actively.
I tried walking forward, but the grass was poking my foot inside my leather boots and slicing up the sides. So I focus my will and pull magic from the ground. This plane was different than ours. The magic was not as thick here, but it ran deep in the roots of the land. I imagined my foot in the same leather boot with a soft sole and whole again.
This time the leather was going to be as strong as the razor grass. As I shaped the magic with my focused will, my boots became bright lime green like the grass. They sparkled like the grass, but they were softer and had more flexibility when I moved my toes around. Stell looked over.
'Amazing, how did you do that, Dak?' -Stell.
'I'm not sure, I just wanted to make my boots the same as the grass, so my feet and boots did not get cut up. It felt like I wanted to augment the boots with the grass, and it just took on its properties. It is just as flexible, and it does not get cut anymore.'
Abruptly, the book popped out of nowhere. It flew open to the first page. Then my arm started to heat up, and I looked down to see the quill glowing blue.
'Use the quill to copy down the spell before the magic fades! Quickly!' -Meso.
I grabbed my quill and wrote down the word on the first page, "augmentation." As I wrote the word down, I could feel the magic being pulled from me in the same feeling that I had when shaping the spell.
'Now, Stell, I want you to try to shape the same thing as Dak with your boots.' -Meso
I could feel Stell focus his will, but he just stood there looking puzzled. I felt him try twice more but to no avail.
'Why can I not do the same?' -Stell.
'Now, do the same thing but do not try to shape the magic; instead, speak the word.' -Meso.
I was slowly starting to understand what Meso was doing and the point he was driving at. Stell did as Meso instructed, and instantly, his boots were the same as mine but brown and the reflective surface look grained.
'I see now. Each of us has unique things we are better suited to than the other and can help each other. This is why there are two of us.'
'On a positive note, at least I did not have to tell you that one. You two might make something of yourselves yet. Once a spell is shaped, it can be recorded, but one of you must shape it first.' -Meso.
I could almost feel Meso smirk with those first comments. I ignored him and then turned to Stell.
'Now that we have learned something, I think we should move on; I am starting to get tired.'
I sent the thought while letting out a yawn. I barely had any time; I pulled all my will together and forced a wall between the forest and us. As I did, a glass wall formed to our left like sparking clear blue crystal. Just as it formed in place, an arrow clicked off its exterior. Then, before I could do anything else, the book was in my face.
'Put the spell down, Dak fast!' -Meso.
'Don't you think this is the wrong time for that?'
'NOW, DAK!' -Meso
Meso's voice screamed in my head. More arrows clinked on the wall, and we could see strange people moving towards us with crystal bows and sparkling spears. I quickly grabbed my pen from my forearm, and it lit up bright blue. As I copied the spell, light poured into the quill from me and the land, and that same feeling of the magic being shaped, leaving me and being drawn into the word "Wall."
When I turned and looked, all of our attackers had dropped their weapons and down to their knees. Now on closer inspection through the glass wall. I could see they had clothes made the same way he had made his boots, and they had crystal running in veins through their hair. Their eyes sparkled, and even their skin had a slight sparkle.
"Great ones, we apologize for attacking you; we did not know who you were," The female in the front said as she got up and stepped forward. "Please excuse our rudeness. We have seen you use magic without making a spell. We thought you were a Dark-Eyed-One."
"A...Dark-Eyed-One?" Stell asked with a frown.
"We are the Crystorians, keepers of the gems and protector of the Great Gem-hide Tree. The Dark-Eyed-Ones are corrupted creatures that hold magic hostage in crystals and power their dark magic machines. They also use it to cast spells without forming the first, so we do not give them a chance to pull out their crystals. They are trying to sneak into our woods to steal our gems to corrupt them and use them to harvest the magic out of the land." The female explained to us. I cut her off.
"We would love to hear more about this, but we are exhausted, and we are both hungry. Maybe tomorrow, if you can provide us with shelter and food, we can help you with something." I was tired, starving, and I could see Stell's shoulders start to droop. It felt like ages since we slept, and I was becoming all too aware of the bruises and bumps I had got over the last day.
I let the wall go and almost collapsed. It seems the spells take a lot out of your to record them. That was the last thing I remembered.