We had purchased two little wagons that were charming as fuck and made me feel as if I was some sort of mysterious fortune teller at a carnival. They were like extremely cramped mobile homes, with two narrow beds - one of them folded out from the wall over the other - and a little desk thing and cupboards and a washbasin and... I loved it. It made me deliriously happy. Each was pulled by two moskar, though these were a bit slower and stronger than the ones we'd ridden before. They had the same flat bony faces as if they had evolved to ram people, and the same beneficial ability to eat practically any plant they came across - I'd named them Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, and Shitheel. Shitheel was, very briefly, named Grumpy but it was quickly apparent that his attitude went well beyond merely being cranky and bordered on actual evil. I shared my wagon with Elba, who spent most of her time perched up on the roof as we traveled, and of course Katrin and Errod split the other.

We had a fair amount of cash, carefully concealed, and other than dropping off Elba with her family we planned on finding a larger city and going shopping for magic items that would make it easier to deal with being out in the wilderness for an extended period of time. We hadn't had a chance in Radagan while hammering out the details of our deal for the Duminere location, and I didn't want to stick around after and be snatched up by Hammersmith - although with Telen dead and the Behemoth trapped somewhere the already floundering forces of Halenvar should be in bad shape. In addition to that, since Connie had destroyed the man that was supposed to be helping with the doomsday device it seemed impossible they would be able to finish it before getting wiped out seeing as they would be trapped in Brynnklar or Brinkmar or wherever with no way to send out for supplies. Doomsday averted. No more apocalypse. So maybe Hammersmith would be busy cleaning that mess up, and in a more optimistic mood.

The first week on the road was far nicer than the one we spent getting to Radagan and dealing with the paperwork. Each day we'd just travel along, practicing magic until we were out of mana, and then when the moskar needed breaks Errod and I would spar a bit as Katrin taught Elba to read. In the evening we'd head off of the road and into the hills a little in the hopes of getting a slightly better ambient mana level, and try to come up with games to play around the campfire. It was cozy, and I could feel myself slowly moving past the more traumatic bits of my time since arriving from Earth although I had still avoided reading through Connie's journal apart from what I had needed to in order to get the contracts written. Best of all, since I was traveling and wasn't being told what to do by anyone I was getting all the benefits of a found family experience without triggering my weird "must run away and live in an abandoned factory" impulse. We'd tried our best to keep from talking about Earth or my extra Dumines around Elba, and while she almost certainly knew something was up she didn't seem to care. I'd been a little worried about Errod as well - first he got a dud in the Duminere, then his sister got two gifts, and then to top it off he had to deal with the knowledge that without at all deserving it I'd come away with nine. And yet he seemed genuinely happy for me, which made me feel like a bit of an asshole - if our positions had been reversed I would have been extremely bitter and quite possibly started to daydream about him having a terrible accident. Errod was just... an actually good guy. He was also putting up well with the glove, which was still stuck to his left hand and still didn't seem to be doing anything magic - Katrin and I had tried to pull it off with no success, and when I tried to make an exploratory cut on the edge my blade couldn't even scratch the strange leather.

For Katrin, training was simple. She just kept reading the spellbook, and practiced casting spells. As she improved her Dumine she would be able to understand the more complicated spells and - with the scholar gift - memorize them, and eventually she would be able to alter the spells or make her own. If she built it up enough she would even be able to make new spells on the fly, though obviously she wouldn't be as good at any given type of magic as someone with that particular gift - so if she used spellcasting to do something with gravity, it wouldn't compare to someone who had trained up a Dumine with the gravity gift. Not that it mattered - the versatility was ridiculous. That was a long way off though, so for now it was mostly the same spells she had been practicing when we met. I, on the other hand, had a lot to think about.

"Okay, you can still see - sense, whatever - the little root things. Right?"

There was a pause before Katrin answered. "Yes. Sorry, I forgot you had your eyes closed too, I was nodding. I can sense them, reaching out from the Dumine. And around the Dumine, something... liquid?"

Describing what we could feel now that we'd been in the Duminere was tricky. It was like the way you were aware of parts of your body, although it wasn't a sense of sight or touch. Just... vague knowledge. But at the same time, it did somehow give the impression of something three dimensional; you could explain, with some difficulty, that something felt big or small or long or some other descriptor. You just couldn't say in relation to what, or how you knew.

"Right. So mine, the root things are reaching for each other. Some are touching already. It's like the Dumines are linking together, which seems like a good sign."

"Great. So are you ready to commit to developing something?"

It was a fair question. Adrian, my deadbeat roommate, had played a lot of video games and a few had had some sort of skill tree you needed to put points into. This was essentially that, but unfortunately without the clear labels. Nothing said "+10% to range" or "5 point reduction in base mana cost". Instead it was just impressions, and they became exponentially less clear as you reached to feel out the forks deeper in the skill tree.

"No. I don't know where to start. I can feel all these little branches, and the bigger paths, and the connections between them... it's too much."

I'd asked about guidebooks, or diagrams of the skill trees, or something - but Katrin had told me that while there absolutely were books out there, it was her understanding the branches were slightly different for everyone. In addition to that I had one ability nobody had ever been able to pick before, and interactions with divination that wouldn't normally be possible. I suspected even the one I'd inherited from Connie wouldn't be the same as it had been for her, now that those little wires were connecting.

"Okay option one: try to develop this mystery one as fast as possible, to get a better idea of what it is. Very tempting option of course, but it means putting points into probability and temporal and enchantment first because I can't seem to feel out the path for it yet and I think it's waiting on the prerequisites."

Katrin scrunched her forehead at me. "Points?"

"Yeah, sorry, there is zero chance I'm going to be able to avoid talking about this like I'm leveling up in a video game. And... that meant nothing to you. Okay, well, that brings us to option two! Thought. I need to check in on my fucked up brain at some point for sure, so I could just start there and dig on in. The side benefit is that I can learn how to... I don't know, link up with you and share memories. That way you can see video games for yourself - I can show you Earth, and you'll finally understand a little of what I'm talking about."

"Oh that would be amazing! The chance to see another world, that no one has been to before..."

"There are eight billion of us, Katrin." But as soon as I said it, I knew it didn't translate right. There was some limit to the automatic conversion to base six, apparently, and I had hit it. Even though I felt silly and pedantic, I tried to scribble some quick math on a scrap of parchment Katrin had been using to keep track of our supplies. The problem was that the only way I knew to convert to base six was exceptionally tedious for such a huge number. I would be out of parchment by the time I got three digits, and it was probably a thirteen-digit number. Although it wouldn't really be that long in the native language, because despite being base six they actually had more than six number symbols. They had a special symbol for thirty-six, for example, and a few larger numbers as well. You could write out all the zeroes, but if you wanted to count by saying "thirty-six and five" that would work too. I thought about trying something with that, but gave up.

"Look it's a big enough number my translation band won't convert it."

"In any case, you know what I mean. It's somewhere nobody from this world has gone."

"That you know of."

"I... yeah. That we know of. I guess that's good to remember."

"Moving on! Next option would be more mana, since I've already put a little into it." I'd only invested the teeniest bit, but I had needed something to practice and spend my mana on so I could get stronger, and I figured mana itself would let me get a better feel for my limits. I didn't want to strain myself again, nor did I want to be so careful that I wasted potential practice time. It was an odd feeling - I could sense the mana in me, this warm ball in some impossible place sort of in my chest but also nowhere. With effort I could move it around a little, and it felt like there were multiple pockets or pools inside me where it could rest although I couldn't figure out why or whether there was any benefit to shifting it around. Katrin had bought me a little book of basic runes and I'd managed to write the equivalent of "HELLO WORLD" onto the wall in my wagon - it was a simple set of runes that made an adjustable light, and I would sit there pushing mana into it to activate it and then pulling the mana right back out again. It was a slow way to practice, but I felt a little more confident each time and my awareness of mana was becoming clearer. Transferring it between people, or moving more at a time, or other tricks like that would require I develop my Dumine more, but it would mean I could recharge Katrin as needed.

"Option... four? Yeah, four. Jack of all trades - since the little starting branches are cheap, I could unlock a minor ability from each of them. Nothing would be all that powerful, most of the cheap things are just like... sensing stuff... but it might unlock divination and the mystery option which I need to do anyway, and it could give me ideas on what to work on next."

"Do you have enough 'points' for that?"

"Probably not, even after juggling mana in and out of runes every waking minute. But I have enough to do most of them at this point I think, and I can do more as we travel." Connie and Cyne had both said that the first few weeks were easiest and growth became a little spotty after that, but once Elba was dropped off we planned on finding somewhere with a nice deep mana well, killing some monsters, drinking groba juice - though I think that one is superstition - and just taking a few months to train.

Long term, I did want to make sure I was good at fighting. I wanted to be able to deal with monsters, maybe even be some kind of bounty hunter with my divination magic. That would mean doing something to give myself an advantage. Spatial, to throw knives around corners? Enchantment and probability to make sure I always hit or set traps? But of course, the two I was thinking of most didn't seem guaranteed to help with that at all. Thought, for my memories, and the mystery ability to see if I'd unlocked something ridiculous and broken. I closed my eyes and felt the Dumines there, in whatever imaginary space they inhabited. They were spaced out some, but I had a feeling they would fit nicely on a hex grid - the way they were aligned made me wonder if they had been designed to allow for people to have multiple Dumines or if it was just some natural pattern. I felt through the skill trees, though that part didn't map as well to three-dimensional concepts; they branched and connected in odd ways that felt like I was looking at an optical illusion, and I could only get a clear understanding of what abilities they unlocked for the bottom few levels.

Okay, jack of all trades to start, with an emphasis on thought and the mystery thing. For thought, I didn't need to focus on mind reading - although that could eventually tie in with the divination stuff. Instead, I looked for something that was facing inwards. I found one that seemed promising and I pushed, feeling the sensation of something that was floating around the Dumines shift as if a fog was condensing to liquid and funneling into a container. It was actually a little similar to the feeling of moving mana into a rune. After a moment there was a faint twitch as something gave, and a minuscule bit of light - barely visible when compared to what I'd seen when I first looked into Connie's Dumine this way - lit up. Then I found a tiny branch in temporal, then probability, and finally enchantment. That did the trick and I could sense the mystery skill tree open up, but I no longer had enough to actually do anything. I poked at it, sensing, and it seemed like the main starting point would let me sense... whatever it was the ability dealt with. The cost was steep, however, so it would take at least another week of practice before I could hope to even begin. When I opened my eyes Katrin was looking at me eagerly, and while it was tempting to make her wait I did my best to fill her in.

"Okay. I spread out a little. Thought, then the prerequisites for the mystery thing. Just a tiny little skill in each."

"Anything you can show me?"

"I... no? Hmm. Thought is a meditation thing, I'll have to play with that. Probability is the base level awareness of if anything is tampering with the odds around you so, again, not a thing I can show off. Temporal is a fun one though. Guess how many seconds it's been since you asked me if there was anything I could show you?"

She raised an eyebrow, but grinned. "How many?"

"Twenty-one and a quarter, as of the beginning of this sentence."

She laughed. "Okay. What about enchantment?"

"Eh, same as probability. I can sense if there's already one going nearby. I know, it's not exciting. But it worked, I can feel the other skill tree now. And those things will lead to other abilities, it's still early."

"So it's back to lighting up your rune over and over?"

"Yeah... well. Maybe. Let me check out the thought ability I opened."

Getting into a trance didn't take long. The sounds of the fire and distant insects and the wind through leaves just faded away, and I opened my eyes while also keeping them shut. I was in a room - it looked like one from Earth, and it felt familiar although I didn't recognize it. A little bedroom, with yellow walls and an old television on the dresser. A small desk up against the window with the nice boxed set of the Jake Ross books that I'd owned at some point, although when I picked up the books and flipped through they were blank other than a message in the front cover in such ridiculously swoopy cursive that I couldn't read it. I also tried looking out the window but it was just impenetrable fog, although it didn't feel spooky or ominous in any way. I sat on the bed and gasped.

"Oh my god."

"What is it?" The voice was faint, like it was coming from another room. I dimly felt hands on me, and I realized Katrin had heard my outburst in the real world and was worried.

"It's fine. It's okay. It's just that I had forgotten how nice beds with actual springs are. It's so comfortable."

"You're on a bed?" The voice was maybe a little clearer, a little closer.

"Yeah. I'm in a room, from Earth, and... that's it. Hang on let me try the door. Nope, just fog. Okay, so this ability lets me be in a room in my brain I guess. Alright, let go of me and stop talking for a minute. I promise I'm safe."

I relaxed, and just rested on the bed. There was a little crack in the ceiling and it looked so familiar, like maybe my brain had pulled that detail from an actual memory of a room I used to have. But then why make up the rest of the place? This clearly wasn't a group home, not with only the one bed, and it wasn't from my mom's house or one of the foster homes. It was possibly from a television show, or just... made up. Speaking of television, I got up and turned the tv set on, but it only showed static. Bah.

I spent a few minutes poking around; the drawers were all empty, there was nothing in my bed, and the only thing in the closet was a little gold brooch. I was wearing Earth clothes, and when I checked I found my Dumines were all gone. I flopped on the bed again, and finally did my best to open my eyes for real.

"Whoa. That's disorienting. I was laying down, but actually sitting up."

"You're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was... boring, but interesting. When you were talking to me the whole place felt a little like I was just imagining it, but as long as I was tuning out the real world it felt totally real. Not just how it looked but the feel of the sheets on the bed, and the temperature, and... everything. If I can make that bigger, maybe add a food truck and a water slide? That's going to be nice." And possibly best of all, it didn't feel like it had used much mana - if any. That made sense, it was totally inside my head so it's not like I was changing the outside world at all. Later, this could lead to me accessing my own memories and even changing them. It was tempting to snip out or edit a few of the worse ones...

"I need to unlock something from thought to get you in there with me, you can start seeing Earth stuff. I have a sudden urge for a chocolate milkshake, I can try to make one for you too."

When I went to bed Elba's tossing and turning was making the whole wagon creak, so I ducked into the bedroom to pass some time until she was asleep. It was the same, and after a moment I realized that the drawer I had left open hours earlier was still in the same position. I'd assumed that the room would reset, or change each time like it was a dream - if it stayed, that could actually be useful. Could I write things down, and refer to them later? Could I find a way to add more rooms, more furniture? Of course, the downside was that if everything remembered what I'd done I would eventually have to clean my imaginary bedroom. I spent half an hour trying to create things, but no matter how I concentrated nothing happened. Eventually I collapsed on the bed to think, and after a while I started to feel funny. It was a little like being high, this disconnected floating feeling. I had to concentrate to hang on to the room, and when I sat up it felt like the walls behind me were drifting off into space - although if I spun around to check they were as sturdy as always.

A flickering light caught my eye and I realized that the view out the window was finally something other than fog, but it was so chaotic that it made me dizzy to watch out of it for long. I could see little bits of things I recognized out there - the wagon, a Circle K, the river that ran through Theramas, the park near my mom's house. I walked over and opened the door, and it was like a hurricane was outside; I could feel myself being pulled into the dream, out of my bubble, but I held on to the doorframe and after a moment things seemed to calm down. I watched the swirling landscape outside, and very carefully and clearly imagined what I wanted. I waited, thinking, and after a moment I heard a bicycle horn honking. He came into view a moment later, an old Hispanic man named Jesus on a strange bike - or trike, I suppose - with two wheels in the front on either side of a big box filled with bottles and coolers. It looked like it had been made in his garage, rather than bought from anywhere.

"Elote?" he asked, and got out a little cardboard tray before I even had a chance to answer.

"Yeah, the works."

He sprung into action, pulling out a steaming ear of corn and smothering it in mayonnaise, lime juice, crumbles of white cheese, and chili powder. Then he placed it in the tray and handed it through the doorway. I thanked him and closed the door before he could ask for payment, and sat down on the bed. The elote was still there, in my hands. And it smelled delicious. I took a bite and it tasted just like I remembered - well, obviously it did.

"Okay," I said to myself, "This could be something. I could start to like it in here."