I’m already lost and I have only given maybe twenty steps or so. Not only that, I’m also “overwhelmed” by what’s near me. We are not surrounded by so much magic that I’m being suffocated or anything like that but, the small area where we are it’s the area with the most magic on it compared to all of the places we went through and around this area. Several magical traces and residues are scattered throughout this area, some even have the same type of magic as in the book, making it basically imperceptible from the “real” one as they have the same characteristics. In other words, I will have to fish for the real one but until that point, we will be mindlessly walking around trying to figure out where the needle in the hay is trying to lead us to… Argh, what a pain in my beautiful Heroic rear end. This is one of those times I wish I was better at scouting. I can comfortably say that this “field of work” is my weakest side. I could probably ask Miss Pink Orb here if she could help me out but, from the magic usage that I’m feeling from her, I don’t want to burden her even more as she would need to use maybe 10 times more magic than normal, all because her real body is in a different universe. Yep, she’s already using magic to be in this “form”, that’s enough to tire someone and to add on top of it the usage of a magical spell in a different universe from yours, that magic usage jump through the damn roof as you either have to transport said magic spell between universes, something that of course is beyond hard to achieve or, you have to find a way for your magic to do the traveling instead. While the latter one is “easier” to do than the first one, it still will consume the crap ton of magic.
Or in other words, I’m too stubborn to ask her for help.
And I’ve just contradicted myself on what I said about asking for help… But, I do have a good excuse as I’m worried about her. She will use way too much magic for something so small and potentially unnecessary. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Alright, calm down and assess your situation at hand. The book is definitely leading me somewhere but thanks to how little magic it has, it’s easily confused with other traces of magic. To make it worse, said traces are almost indistinguishable from the book’s magic. Now, how can I solve this? Simply using Magic Sense and Magical Eyes won’t solve as I’ve tried that before in fact, it will only confuse me more. I could probably remove all the magic that it’s present here but, I’m afraid that if I do so, I might also remove the magic from the book and therefore, lose the “path” that it’s being laid out for us. So, this is another no go. What else can I do then? I’m really out of ideas…
But just as I was brainstorming what I could do to solve this, a rather perfectly round angel decided to bless me with a bright warm light, lighting away the darkness that was consuming my mind.
“Uhm, can you see all of these traces of magic? I’ve noticed that a few of them keep going in several directions while others are standing still. Do you think the book’s magic is leading us somewhere?”
While I might have been looking at my surroundings with all my skills, it seems I wasn’t actually doing so. But what makes it even worse is that she probably used some type of spell or skill to reach this conclusion, making her use a tremendous amount of magic energy in the process. Something that I didn’t want her to do… What she’s saying is more than true and something that I failed to notice, forcing her to act because of it. Yes, there still are quite a bit of magic traces and residues here and while a few of them seem to go god knows where, it’s not all of them. The ones that are standing still are basically a cluster of magic that can change in size, shape and density, with Magic Eyes what you will basically see it’s just a fog like phenomenon that is ever changing, but one filled with magic. The other ones are literally a line that stretches for a few centimetres or even meters in some cases, getting thinner as it goes. Or it should be as in some cases, a few centimetres or meters later, said line gets thicker instead, regains its original size with it. However, these ones keep on going on their journey, only stopping once they have reached their destination or said magic reaches its limit, disappearing because of it. Although, this phenomenon of getting thinner and then a few moments later regaining the original size is constantly happening, right until the very end. Either way, I just need to follow the ones that seem to lead anywhere while ignoring the ones that are standing still. I will start with the ones that have roughly the same amount of magic as the book. I doubt that the phenomenon of the line getting thinner will happen as the book is constantly moving with me, always sending updated information of its whereabouts to wherever the destination might be, making the line reset over and over with it, preventing this phenomenon from happening. But, if it stays still then, it will suffer the same fate as all of the other ones.
And I’ve yap for a little too much, let’s get moving.
“Yes, I can see all of them and that’s why I’m a little confused and lost but, what you just said has cleared up my mind. We will follow some of their magic traces as I believe the book is leading us somewhere. However, we might walk in circles for a few moments, is that alright with you?”
Ah, I simply can’t shake my worry now, especially after my mistake. I don’t know how much magic energy she still has on her. Her magic reserves might be close to giving her magic deficiency or she might still have more than enough, allowing her to go for a whole day without any breaks whatsoever. The Spirit Magic Stone is unable to tell me how much magic energy she currently has even though I can confidently say that she’s holding it tightly. Hmm, I need to do something real fast as I really don’t want her to suffer from magic deficiency. Although, I probably should stop overthinking this and just straight out ask her but, something tells me that she will deny everything and just say that everything is fine and for me to not worry about it. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling that I have and that’s the exact reason that I have to ask her.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I might be wrong though…
Step! Step!
Yep, I was right indeed. Before we got moving, I have to say that I did overcome my anxiety and asked her if she was fine. I told her that I was worried about her magic usage as I doubt she's using very “little” of it at this precise moment. As anyone can expect, Miss Pink Orb told me that everything is fine and to not worry about it, shrugging off what I said to the sides with such ease that I’m actually jealous of it. The second fact that I was right was unfortunately that we did walk around in circles for a few minutes until I found the correct path. Luckily, it was nothing more than 5 minutes but nonetheless, that’s 5 minutes of unnecessary magic usage from Miss Pink Orb. However, while doing this mindlessly walking around, I did learn a few things on how all of this works.
The first one is that, remember what I said about how those lines of magic work? Well in this specific case, only the book’s line is the one that “suffers” the phenomenon that I briefly mentioned and even though that I said that since the book is constantly in contact with the “destination” and that the line will never get thinner thanks to it, I was in fact wrong. The one that is in constant “update” with one another is the “destination” rather than the book itself. It’s basically telling the book to “come back” rather than the book wanting to go to a specific place. This might be a little confusing but that’s only for now as once we know what the “destination” is we will get all the answers for our questions. Anyway, the other traces simply stretch for a few meters or centimetres until disappearing completely, they do not lead anywhere at all. Maybe in the past there was something that connected these traces but now, that’s not the case. Once we’ve figured out what is the real trace, we follow it and after a few seconds of walking, we reach a rather boring but interesting area at the same time. It still is the first floor but, in this case, it’s behind the stairs.
“Is this the place?”
I can understand your confusion and to be honest I agree after all, we are staring at a rather normal looking bookshelf.
“I think so? At least that is where the book leads us to. I can still see the magic going from the book towards the shelf or should I say, from the shelf towards the book?”
Either way, looking at the shelf at first you won’t see anything out of the ordinary, it looks like all the other ones that are still standing up, “untouched” by the catastrophe that rampaged this library. It’s built in the same way, even with a small “carpet” on the shelves itself. Although, with a quick look you will notice that, at the top shelf there are two pieces of wood that divide it in three parts. Not equal though, the middle one seems to be bigger than the other ones, being able to fit I think four books if they are not overly big. Hmm, wait a second, there is magic coming from that part of the shelf, going towards the book…
“I just noticed this but, can you see where the magic is coming from?”
“Barely, it seems to be coming from the top shelf.”
She told me that a few short seconds of her using the skill Magical Eyes won’t consume much magic but I still should keep it to the very minimum and only ask her to use it in important situations. But now that I’m saying this, she’s amazing! To be able to see magic from a completely different universe is not easy at all to do. Think of this way, she’s using the pink orb as a form of a moveable “mirror” that transmits to her whatever is on the other side. Just like a crystal ball would do and yet, even in these conditions she still is able to physically see magic. Sensing it though, it might be impossible and the only reason she can see is only possible thanks to the orb itself, if the orb cannot see anything, then on the other side the same happens. Maybe she’s using another spell that can transform the information the orb is receiving into a concrete and physical form? We can only see magic by using magic as otherwise our eyes are not physically able to do so but with a spell that can somehow manipulate our eyes to have the characteristics that allows us to see said magic then, we are able to physically see it. This is the base of how Magical Eyes skill works. Ah, here I am going on another random tangent…
“That’s correct and to be precise, it’s right in the middle. I think we have to put the book there…”
Book noises!
And that’s exactly what I do, carefully storing the book in the middle but on the right side. I didn’t feel anything as I did so, no resistance as I was storing the book nor anything else after doing so. But, after a few seconds of waiting, three additional magic lines appear, all of them going in different directions.
“Does that mean that we have to look for more books?”
Good thinking Miss Pink Orb and that’s exactly what I also think. You just took the words out of my mouth and spoke faster than I.
“I think so but with this, not only did we take a massive step forward, we also got a new objective. Maybe once we have collected all of them, we will get what we came here for.”
“I hope so…”
Why does she sound a little… down? Sad? Unsure? Did I do something to provoke this? I don’t think so, my tone of voice was normal, the look on my face was the same way and so on. This is odd but I have no clue on how to react to this, how to turn it around… Or, am I overthinking it once again? As these thoughts consume my mind for brief moments, we decide to look around first on the first floor as two magic lines seem to go upwards towards the second floor. Right now, we are right behind the stairs or in other perspective, if the stairs weren’t here, we would face the entrance. And seeing things from that perspective, where we explored first was the left side, we actually didn’t touch the right one, so much so that we didn’t even give a single step on it. However, the magic line that is in this floor goes to that side so, that’s where we will be going first since we won’t bother with the second floor for now.
