So, the next day we were gone from Boomtown. I with a hangover, the youth with dark circles around her eyes that made her look like a nightmare panda.
Except that instead of round ears she had slightly pointy ears and sported a tail. For the rest, it was the same.
I now knew that partying was the best way to get her to sleep and possibly rest the whole other day too. If I just weren't suffering from a hangover...
"Thoth... Thoth... Thoth. Sometimes you're just like a puppy." My mutters trailed off as I speedily calculated how much standardised time had passed while on my little adventure.
Five months had shrunk to four and a week all the while I hadn't gathered any of the ingredients necessary for the Baptism of Gula...
While preferring to think no more about such disastrous notions than was absolutely necessary, I jumped down the tall tree that took me ages to climb, ready to get things done.
"What do we have here... Sungrass Stalks? Confiscated." The descent went on with me hopping from one branch to the other where the space available didn't allow me to glide down.
"Clearhead Corn? Growing on a tree?! What's the world become...?" My puzzlement didn't hinder me from claiming that herb too.
Now I just needed clean water and any other herb usable as a catalyst. Which I found both down in the soggy meadow.
"Pauper Sorrel... was expecting something professional too much to ask for?" "Ayuee~" "I know, I know. Can't always have everything."
"Uwaaaa~?" Washing my ingredients, I searched for a rock to carve a depression into. "Listen, mate. It shall not come to pass that I remain stale."
There was one not too far away. Dirty, but it had to suffice. Meadows didn't usually have clean rocks, after all.
"I *was* mightier in the past, so I'm striving to reach that level and exceed it step by step. Me understanding your brabbles is but the cherry on top of the most recent strengthening."
"Auuuuu... Uuuuaahhhhh!!" I had to admit, her lethargy was very welcome. A sight for sore eyes, the way she lay atop my shoulders, powerlessly wrung like a scarf around my throat.
Yet her tiny hands were constantly repeating the very same action that had let to marvellous fire tongues galloping through the clear nightly skies of Boomtown.
That was pretty much silly and totally useless as she wouldn't cast magic this way. Never ever. The youth was no fire fairy, their physiology differed!
By the time I got my depression, I crushed the herbs, put in some water, added mana and waited for some odd minutes.
The viscous solution mostly went up in smoke, leaving behind but a sip of essence, which I lapped up from the stone.
The taste was nothing to write home about, but a certain level of clearheadedness returned due to my poor taste bud's valorous sacrifice.
I broke the stone to shards, adding some poisonous plants to the mix and wrapped it all up with some scraps of clothes taken from my inventory until the creation looked like a wet grater that had seen better days.
The Great Consciousness had just spoken in riddles once more, which made me prepare better. I hadn't quite understood what it was trying to tell me or what I was trying to prepare myself for, but... this couldn't go wrong.
The prop landed in my inventory. Reorienting myself briefly, I was on my way again, silently lamenting part of my very troublesome circumstances.
Aethernum wasn't without its enemies, deranged creatures that forever cast a greedy eye on my beautiful home, ready to snatch it given the chance.
The marvellous place was suffused with a certain type of aura so easy to discover the strangeness of. The exact reason I had it built there in the first place.
With my homecoming, movement had returned to the stale pond, surely about to prompt reactions not that far in the future.
Originally I had planned to close off Aethernum from the outside realms, move to another location if I could, but I just had to lack the authority necessary...
"Uwaa! Wwwwwuuuhhhh~!" "Silly thing, I told you that's the wrong way." Though tired and sad about the lack of flames, she had yet to give up.
The notion might not even exist in her limited vocabulary. I couldn't help but grin away at her silly antics all the while the ground shrunk beyond my feet.
As I had nothing better to do, I started introducing the beautiful world of spellslingers to her. No doubt she wouldn't understand most of it, but trying never hurt.
"Except for a few individuals limited by racial magic, the Races got the choice in deciding upon their own School of Magic."
The youth grew oddly silent, her ears twitching nonstop as they tickled my chin. Same for the tail at the other end and reaching up to my horns.
"That is because the most basic prerequisite besides talent is a working spellmodel delicately and carefully branded onto the soul.
When you start out, there isn't much space on there and the quality of foundations is spongy at best. You cannot build a castle, you must go for a needy shack first.
Only with proficiency and opportunities will the foundation that is your soul thicken up or even grow.
It is the playground of lesser spells. A School of Magic is therefore nothing other than groupings of compatible spells that can be cast with one type of spellmodel.
Wherever you gain your second one, your third one or more can you switch to other schools. Until then, you're mostly barred from utilising other magic even in case you know the theories inside out.
Until then, true talent means nothing. Until then, mages are like duckweed. So easily cut down. You understand?"
We had left the meadow by now, moving past clear signs of civilisation. The topic might have been too heavy for she literally radiated confusion before growing even more tired.
I got the feeling I'd have to repeat the explanation somewhen in the distant future. "The point is, you have to choose a spellmodel that is—" "Stop in your tracks, brazen intruder!"
And the youth managed to doze off... For me, the daily business called. Now, l had to play this diplomatically with the high elves! "Your—fucking daemon! Begone!!"
Why did this sound so familiar? "Fur fucks sake," I swore, "I fucking intrude into the fucking abyss to see if the fucking alchemists have some fucking brains left!!!
Defiling our beautiful, striking, dignified appearance!" Needless to mention, this wasn't the kind of welcome I'd hoped for. Yet it still turned out worse...