After touching the crystal on the floor to refresh the timer on the light, she started inspecting the room for anything she may have missed the first time. The walls were still smooth and seamless on three sides. Focusing on the mural once more, she noticed that the Illusion swirl was now faintly glowing. Careful to avoid any sharp edges on the wall, she gingerly pressed the swirl symbol.

The entire wall that the mural was on soundlessly opened outwards. Walking out of the room, there was a walkway around the room she was just in. There were four doors in her immediate sight, each door representing one of the eight symbols she was familiar with. She did not see the Illusion door so she started to wander down the hallway. Movement behind her startled her as the door she just exited closed. ‘Well, I didn't want to be stuck in there anyway.’

The illusion door had several glowing words around it. Deciding that less is more and not wanting to have a repeat of her earlier experience, she looked for words that might open the door. At the very bottom left of the doorframe, there was a tiny word that said “open”. She pushed that word and quickly jumped back as far away as she could get from the door. To her relief, after about thirty seconds, the door slid inside the wall revealing another hallway on the other side.

On the other side of the doorway, there were more runes around the doorframe. She quickly located the “open” symbol and watched it open again for good measure. With nothing of note to see in the hallway, she walked through the long passage for what felt like hours.

The hallway had quite a few doors along the walls that she could open. After opening the first few she came across, she decided to stick to the main hallway as her best chance of getting out of this maze. Many of the doors she had opened had other doors leading from them. At some point, she found a stairway that led up and decided to follow it.

The stone floor was starting to look like a comfortable bed by this point. It has been hours since she was trapped in what she dubbed in her head the “mural room”. There was a very ornate door at the top of the stairs. Calling up a picture of the swirl door from the main entry with her Visualization skill, the two looked to have a similar style.

She was unsure how to approach her parents if this was the last door. They didn't believe her to be a genius so she decided to keep her story as simple as possible. With that decision made, she located and pushed the “open” symbol.

Her luck was finally paying out for her. When the door soundlessly opened, there weren’t any adults in the immediate vicinity. She sprinted as quickly as her little legs would carry her into the shelving units that she had spent so many hours playing in and around. There were a couple of contingency plans that she came up with during her long walk and this one she felt was her best one.

After crawling under a shelving unit, she immediately started crying. This was the same shelving unit she had found quite a while ago that had a little cubby to hide in. During her play with the other kids, she discovered a small underground room beneath the shelf. It had a ladder so she had never gotten stuck in there before.

She heard the sound of a pair of running feet. “VIOLET!” her dad shouted.

“Zarek, I hear her! It sounds like she is under this shelf.” A concussive force followed her mother’s words.

“Dammit! I can’t move this thing. Lyra, run back and get Nina. She may be able to fit under this infernal shelf.”

She had decided that her story was to be that she fell in this room and hit her head. Having no way to find a reason for her hand to be cut, she simply decided to play dumb. Being three and a half had its benefits. Adults don’t usually expect well-thought-out reasons from toddlers.

Close to an hour later, Nina arrived. Her dad had stayed with her talking through the shelving unit to let her know he was still there. She felt bad for her deception but the truth would be worse in her opinion. When he asked if she could climb out, she told him that her hand hurts and she couldn’t climb. Her hand did hurt so that excuse wasn’t too far-fetched.

Nina’s tiny frame was able to just barely fit under the shelf. It was a little comical to watch her wiggle like a worm to get into the deeper section with her. “I see her! There is an underground room in here. Hold on, I'm going to climb down and get her out. There is a ladder here for me to use to get back out.”

Violet was worried Nina was going to hit her head when she fell into the room. She managed to get her hands out in front of her in time. “You gave us quite a fright, little Violet.” She grimaced when she saw the state of Violet’s dress but seeing that it was dried blood, she focused on getting Violet out of the room.

As soon as they made it back to camp, Violet was subjected to a bath. It was difficult to keep her concentration to maintain the illusion over the mark on her stomach. At five mana every minute, She had only enough mana to sustain her illusion for a little over two hours. Right now, her problem wasn't so much mana as it was concentration. Her parents didn't want to buy the story of her hitting her head and just waking up when she started crying. She didn't have any bumps or scrapes on her head and believe me, they looked thoroughly.

A jar of ointment was used on her cut. The color and consistency caused her to let out a sleep-deprived giggle when she saw it. It was a jar of green slime, viscous and squishy. Once the ointment was placed on her cut, her hand stopped throbbing. She was amazed at how such a small cut could bleed so much and cause her such pain.

The next day, Sky, Jade, and her were told they could no longer run around and climb on things. The adults each took a turn teaching or watching the children. The freedom to roam as they pleased had come to an end. She had high hopes that this was just an overreaction to her going missing and they would ease up on them sometime in the future. Until then, it was time to go over the alphabet again with Judy.

It has been six months and they have not let up their vigilance on watching us. I am thankful fate chose magic that I would be able to practice. If I had received something like fire, I would have quite a hard time practicing it. My parents would think I had turned into a pyro or worse figure out that I had developed magic.

Wearing a white dress has never been such a hassle. Every time my concentration would slip in the beginning, a black mark could be seen through the thin white material. I have gotten to the point where I can maintain the illusion on my skin for the entire time I am awake. As the synchronization level for Disguise Self rose, the mana cost dropped. Maintaining the aspect is almost free when you consider the natural regeneration of my mana pool.

To practice my magic at night, I have been trying to make myself look like Jade. One of the items that were left by the two groups that left was a mirror. I made sure to beg my parents to put it in my room. Yes, I have a room now and it even has a door! Corrin was able to find another tree that had fallen. It was near the edge of the barrier so it took the adults several of their rest days to bring back enough for everyone to build rooms inside their dwellings.

Long grasses were used to weave support for a mattress between the bed frame edges on my new bed. My mother made sure to warn me that if I jumped on the bed, the center would break and I would be sleeping on the floor again. As time went on, the weaving started to stretch. This had the added benefit of being more comfortable but I was afraid it was going to snap soon.

Level

21

Age

4

Experience

(21660/23100)

Health

200/200

Mana

670/670

Stat Points

100

Skill Points

4

Strength

15

Constitution

20

Dexterity

17

Intelligence

72

Wisdom

67

[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]

[Basic Skills]

Acting

30

Climbing

17

Drawing

10

Language - Common

MAX

Mathematics

20

Meditation

20

Running

12

Writing

10

[Novice Skills]

Sneak

15

Visualization

24

[Advanced Skills]

Mental Notes

2

Language - Runic

3

[Magic]

Type

%

Aspect

Illusion

7%

Illusion

59%

Disguise Self

The system had an odd way of calculating overall percent. There were nine plots for me to uncover aspects in, this meant there were a total of nine aspects that I could gain. Doing quick math in my head with the help of Mental Notes to see what I was doing, means each aspect is worth around 11% of the overall total for Illusion. But this is where the math got wonky. My current synchronization level was 59%, which added up to 6.56% for the overall percent. The system automatically rounded up and called it 7%. That part made perfect sense to me. What didn't make sense was when I was at 58% or 6.44% overall, it still rounded up and gave me 7%.

I’m not complaining about this weird quirk of system math. Based on my calculations I needed to get my aspect synchronization up to 64% before I would be eligible to gain another aspect.

One of the weaknesses of Disguise Self that I have found is I cannot change my height or proportions. I can make myself look like Jade with green hair and brown eyes, but I could not shrink my height to match her. I also could not make myself look fat without props. I put a pillow under my dress one night and was able to make it look like I had a big belly. It was not perfect by any means and it would take a lot of practice and better props to be able to pull it off in front of others.

It took a total of nine months after my disappearing act for the adults to relax their guard. They still rotate which adult is in charge of keeping an eye on us for the day. Each morning we attend class and learn our numbers and letters. Sky can read small words now. I no longer wait a few months after Sky starts doing something to copy him. Being close to five years old now allows me to blur the lines a little bit. I am still vigilant about not surpassing him very far or very often. Our classes already cover everything I would expect to find in kindergarten.

After our morning classes, we are told to run laps around the room. I think they came up with this activity with Jade in mind. She has not grown out of her abundance of energy. It is amusing to watch the adults try to get her to sit still in our classes. Once we are done with our laps, we are to lay down and take a nap. I’m not sure why they still try to enforce this as none of us have fallen asleep for a few weeks now. Jade is the weak link there but I guess she is allowed because she is six months younger than I am.

I have gotten very close with Sky and Jade over the years we have been together. Sky was very upset when I had my disappearing act and has made a point to not give me a moment of privacy since. Both of them were asleep when I was found so they didn’t know about the blood I had all over my dress. Jade made a point of inspecting my “owie” when she saw my hand wrapped in a bandage the next day. I’m not sure what she saw through the bandage but I let her look.