Chapter Thirty - A Talk and a Walk

“After my little altercation with the locals, I decided that perhaps it was time for me to go look into some old things, before resuming my journey. I had something of a goal now, you see.”

***

With the morning came a tide of indecision.

What, exactly, should I tackle next?

That was a question that had plagued me often enough throughout my life. It is quite common for a man to have a dream, something they absolutely, desperately want to achieve. I had those. I had many. And for the most part I accomplished them.

There’s this incredible sense of... well, not to be too reductionist, but it’s a sense of accomplishment.

And then, as that feeling passes, it is slowly replaced by the dawning horror that one of the pillars you found your life around is no longer there. It’s not as painful as the loss of someone important, or of a great opportunity, but it’s still an ache, one that had become all too familiar to me over the millennia as I surpassed my goals.

“Papa?” Alex asked. He bent forwards and carefully placed a steaming cup of tea on the table before me. “I made you tea.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But you are aware that I don’t need to eat or drink, nor am I usually able to.”

Alex nodded. “That’s okay. I was talking to the limpet yesterday, and she said that with some gifts, it’s the thought behind them that counts. So I made this tea while thinking nice things as hard as I could.”

I huffed. “That’s quaint. Thank you.”

Alex bowed. “Anything for Bone Daddy,” he said. “Do you know where we’re going next?”

I considered the question for a moment. “I think I do. I have two destinations in mind. One is quite a bit nearer, so I suppose it will be our first stop. The city of Silvershire should be close to here, if my sense of direction isn’t completely ruined.”

“Is it a nice place?” Alex asked.

“It was, once,” I said. “But it’s not on the limpet’s map. I suspect that it may be gone now. I had a few acquaintances that lived there. Perhaps some of their work lives on. And then we can head to wherever the nearest of my phylacteries are. Especially these fonts the gods have been using.”

Alex nodded. “That’s very rude. Sucking on Bone Papa without permission.”

“Indeed. I’ll want to see if the other four also use my soul as a makeshift battery.” I picked up the tea cup and tipped it back into my mouth. A minor use of Prestidigitation had the liquid evaporate before making a mess of my insides.

The insides of my clothes of course; my body had no insides. Oh hoh!

“Brilliant!” I said as I stood up. “Now, where’s that limpet?”

“I’m here Master!” the limpet said as she burst into the room. “Are we going to go explore an ancient ruined city filled with all sorts of strange and mysterious magics that are really dangerous?”

“Yes, exactly,” I said.

The limpet didn’t seem to know what to do with my agreement for a moment. She soon settled on grinning. “Awesome. I’ve always wanted to go exploring some deep unknowable ruins. I hear that it’s a great place to cultivate.”

“It’s far more likely that the experience gained in such a place is due to all the horrendous creatures that will try to eat you while you’re there,” I said.

The limpet shrugged. “Master’s going to be there.”

“Oh hoh, getting a bit overconfident, are we? We’ll have to see about that.” I patted down my jacket. “I think we’re going to head out now. Are you both ready?”

“Let me get my bag and Fang Fang!”

I watched the limpet run off then turned to Alex. “We’re ready to go,” Alex said. “I paid for the room, and everything is squared away. Are we going to teleport again?”

“I think we will,” I said. “Just a quick jump to that same spot in the woods where we were last time, then we can take off towards the northwest.”

Alex smiled and nodded. “In that case, I’ll get my bags. Will we be leaving from this room?”

“I suppose I ought to mark the runes outside.”

“No magic above the fifth tier in the living room,” Alex said with a serious nod.

Some time later, the three of us, and the dog, were gathered out in the yard before the inn. We were getting a few looks from the people on the street, but I’d long since stopped caring about the opinion of passersby.

Magic pooled around the circle, and the limpet hugged her dog close so that it didn’t bounce out of the magic circle.

We appeared, without fanfare, in a wooded clearing next to a little river. “That worked well enough,” I said.

“Teleporting is so cool,” the limpet said. “I know that I’m focusing on other schools, but one day, when I’m really strong, I want to learn how to do that too.”

“Oh?” I asked. “You can’t light people on fire with Teleport.”

“Maybe not, but I bet I could teleport rocks on top of their houses!”

I chuckled. “That’s certainly an idea. Yes, I can see that working. Though at that point you might as well use Scry or some other distant-viewing spell to cast something more efficient at your foes.”

“Can people trace magic back to the caster. Like, after the spell was cast?” the limpet asked.

I nodded. “Of course. Even you could do it now.”

She frowned, then her eyes widened. “Detect Magic!”

“Exactly. It’s a spell with some surprising utility. Speaking of, we might as well see how far along you’ve come with those two cantrips from yesterday.”

“Ah, I don’t think I’m ready yet, Master,” the limpet said. “I read the books, but I’m not done, and I haven’t practiced at all. I’m sorry.”

“I’d rather you be honest about your limits than risk a miscast in some misplaced attempt to impress me.”

“I’m sure that if I could cast them already I could impress you,” the limpet said.

I shook my head. “Don’t fool yourself. Nothing you do will ever truly impress me.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and her fists tightened. “I’m gonna work so hard,” she whispered before shaking her head. “Master, can you show me when you cast the spells? I want to see what they look like.”

I shrugged. “We need to cross the river anyway.”

“Huh?”

I raised a hand.

“Frostbite.”

The gurgling river next to us wasn’t all that wide. Perhaps six or seven necrometers at its widest. The shores were rough and rocky. It was, if I had to guess, a relatively young river. Likely formed as the local geography shifted about.

A corridor some three necrometers wide snapped as it froze solid into an uneven mess of jagged ice. “There. That’s the Frosebite cantrip. With a bit more power behind it than you could muster on your own right now, of course.”

“Whoa,” the limpet said. “So strong!”

“Not really. I think most competent wizards could manage the same,” I said.

“So I’ll be that strong one day?” she asked. “I can’t wait.”

“You’ll have to. The path of the mage is a slow crawl towards incredible power. It isn’t the way of the martial artist, where a few month’s training can determine much. Learn to face each challenge with as methodical an approach as you can manage, and you will see results eventually.”

The limpet nodded. “I can wait. Waiting is easy if it means being strong enough to get what I want in the end.”

I nodded along. She had the right attitude, at least. “Let’s get going then, we’ll find some monster somewhere to demonstrate Sapping Sting.”

Alex and I crossed the frozen lake without difficulty. The limpet, being the limpet, tripped and fell three times before making it across. Her dress was quite sodden by the time she made it to the opposite shore, but she didn’t complain.

“At the pace we’re moving,” I said after nearly an hour’s walk along the shore. “We will be reaching Silvershire sometime tomorrow morning, that is, assuming we walk through the night.”

“Should we teleport again?” Alex asked.

I tilted my head back, listening to the birdsong and the wind rustling through the trees around us. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, but peaceful nonetheless. “No, I think walking is fine. What’s the point of immortality if you don’t take a moment to enjoy it now and again?”

“Father’s real wise,” Alex said.

“Once in a while,” I said. I eyed the girl huffing and puffing as she kept up with the undead pace Alex and I were keeping up. “Limpet, tell me, what would you do if you discovered that someone took something that was important to you?”

The girl frowned. “That depends,” she said. “What kind of thing is it? Is it something replaceable?”

“I suppose it is, yes.”

She hummed. “Did they really need it? Like, if someone stole from me, and what they stole was some food to feed their kids, I’d be angry, but not that angry, but if someone took my money just because they want it, I’d be way angrier.”

“I see. And if it’s something precious, but replaceable? What if someone took it and you never noticed?”

“Then I guess it’s not that important?” the limpet asked. “Is this a quiz, Master?”

“Nothing of the sort, no.” I dismissed her concerns with a wave. “Just a very old skeleton wondering what he should do.”

“So, in this situation, is it possible to get my things back?” the limpet asked.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“Then that’s what I’d do, and then maybe I’d tell the guard about the people who took my things to begin with.”

“You’re so confident in the guard?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m a girl who travels alone a lot. You kind of need to hope that that guard is doing their job, you know?”

“I see,” I said. A different point of view, then, from my own. I had always had a little bit of an anti-authoritarian streak in me. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”

“Uh, sure thing, Master.”

“You know, you can just call me Harold.”

The limpet shrugged. “You could just call me Fenfang.”

I gave her a skeletal grin. “That wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

“Calling you Harold wouldn’t be fun either. You, ah, well, no offense, Master, but you don’t look like a Master.”

I chuckled. “I suppose I don’t. Perhaps I should grow a beard? Perhaps some long white hair?”

“And robes,” Alex said. “With a sash.”

“Oh, and a really big sword, or maybe a staff,” the limpet added.

I nodded. “Of course, of course.” I patted the limpet atop the head, then did the same to Alex.

Perhaps waking up wasn’t a terrible thing after all. I was making some very enjoyable companions--sometimes literally--and solving a few little things that might have become issues some centuries down the line.

“So, Master, can you tell me more about magic?” the limpet asked. “I can’t, ah, talk and walk as well as you can.”

“I suppose I could,” I said. “Did you ever hear the story of the two eyed king?”

“No?”

I nodded. “It was uncommon even in my day. A historical curiosity. The kingdom in question was quite small, insignificant even. A dwarven kingdom, under a mountain range far to the south. One day a strange magical gas leaked into their deep halls and soon thereafter everyone went blind.”

“That’s not good,” the limpet said.

“Obviously. One man was quite lucky though. A young scholar who knew some clever magics. He kept his sight by means of some spells. No doubt some early form of Abjuration. He soon became the only one who could see in a kingdom of the blind. Do you know what that made him?”

“I’m guessing someone important?” the limpet guessed.

“Indeed. I think, from what I’ve seen so far, that this world is one where some knowledge has faded. And soon, you might be one of the only people around whose eyes still work. I wonder, what will you do with that?”

The limpet was quiet for a long time.

It was an enjoyable walk.

***