“I did it. I mean, I didn’t… did I do it?” I asked curiously. I was used to investing things with magic, but did I just create a substance out of the blue? I looked at the grains of sand of different colors in my hand. They didn’t look like normal sand that much, the pebbles were just a little too large and even, perfect little spheres rather than oddly sized.

I had done that. I mean, I felt it, the energy traveling under my will, forming into what I knew of sand pebbles. I could have just as easily created a rock, or a stick… okay, maybe not a stick, I wasn’t familiar with a stick’s every bit of composition, but still. It was one thing to warm things up, slow them down, transform or freeze them, but this… I mean, I had just created something from nothing.

“Yes, you just did it. Mages summon things from other places or create them from energy constructs. Cultivators move energies or purify them, Even druids like me are more about restoring balances and modifying what is to what needs to be. Only channelers can alter essence permanently from one state to another, and by so doing, call into being things that do not exist. Every living being produces quintessence as they exist, but only Channelers can do it consciously, converting things from their most solid-state to their most energetic state over time and back. That is another reason we are going to the dungeon… intentionally tainting essence, making it more solid and physical, is one thing, but moving it from solid back into energy is a vastly more difficult prospect.” Kalika stated.

“But that flies in the face of physics. I mean, you can convert matter into energy, sure, it is much easier to do it than the reverse. But the amount of energy compared to…. There is no way I could contain enough energy to form even a single particle of sand, much less a handful.” I said, spilling the sand onto the ground and observing as it flew downwards to spread on the ground.

Kalika looked very thoughtful. “I do not understand this word physics, but it sounds like physicality. You are not creating the energy to create the sand, you are merely directing it. The essence already exists in a primed state, ready to be changed, all the energy that exists in it is already chained and ready to be used. Will is everything. The energy you provide merely helps reconfigure the essence, allowing it to be changed upwards or downwards. The thing you also have to remember is that the energies you know of, light, heat, shock, they are only manifestations of essence… even energy itself exists so long as will can change the essence into that form.”

I nodded, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to bring up the subject of radiation. If I had just magically performed fusion in my bare hands, I would probably be dissolving from radiation overload this second. I felt fine, more than fine. I was down a little bit in mana, maybe three percent, but imagining the reaction as a state change made it a little easier to envision than trying to apply my understanding of the actual physics.

Of course, so far physics as I understood it worked perfectly fine in this world, potentially including a nuclear reaction. The sun was nice and warm, which implied that either hyperelectromagnetics or fission were occurring, which made me wonder… did that mean that with enough will, strong enough mana, I could truly create a fission reaction? If so, it’s no wonder that channelers were rare and greatly desired. I could practically feel the potential energy of quintessence traveling through my channels like subdued, nearly perfectly controlled nuclear reactions.

You have obtained the skill of energy circulation at novice poor. You have merged your inactive skill high school AP physics with your skill essence manipulation, improving your skill to expert poor. You have merged your inactive skills in AP mechanical design, electrical engineering, and electronics with your improvised fabrication skill, promoting it to improvised engineering skill (I thought you might like that name) and increasing its level to expert fair. Your essence manipulation upgrade has provided you with the gift ‘mystical creation’ essence manipulation will now allow you to use your mana to create both physical objects and energy, based upon your mana and your understanding of the substance in question.

Oh, and before you ask, I am compiling both your draconic verbs and nouns, as well as the adjectives, into your magical lore skill. When it is complete I will let you know, but it will take some time.

I took a glance at my new and improved, much more streamlined, sheet. Ironically, the draconic verbs I had been agonizing over had become secondary, because I could now create new knots and new verbs that were based upon my understanding of the activity I would be performing. I didn’t need to collate a gigantic verb with all of its potential permutations, I simply had to truly understand what I was trying to accomplish, and create a new, smaller verb to compensate.

Yes, it wouldn’t be as compact as draconic, but I had to assume that I was nowhere near as smart as a thousand-year-old reptile with a brain the size of a Volkswagen, and I also had access to a scientific background that was at the end of a chain of scientific experimenters leading back to the dawn of time. I might not be as smart, but I had the shoulders of giants to stand on.

Of course, the concept of object-oriented procedures and logical operators was, I bet, something Dragons never even considered. Why would they? If you have a brain the size of a planet, you don’t need to find shortcuts to creating huge logic in small spaces. Ask Marvin the paranoid Android. You don’t need a billion custom verbs when you add logical operators to context-based nouns.

Bran’s Character Sheet

Brantley Gallagher Winterborne

Ice Kobold

Body size: Medium-light

Evolution: 61%

Health: 100%

Body: Great

Mana: 100%

Mind: Superb

Fatigue: 100%

Reflexes: Extreme

Player level equivalent: 14

Speed: Superb

Unenhanced Skill Groups

Logic: journeyman poor

Mathematics: apprentice good

Acrobatics: apprentice good

Piloting: apprentice fair

Spellcrafting: apprentice good

Security: apprentice fair

Socializing: apprentice fair

Energy Circulation: Novice poor

Enhanced Skill Groups

Survival: expert superb

Martial arts: adept fair

Ranged combat: adept superb

Improvised Engineering: expert fair

Essence Manipulation: expert poor

Stealth: adept fair

Foundation: journeyman fair

Willpower: adept mediocre

Physical Fitness: journeyman mediocre

Magical Lore: adept good

Innate

Ice Kobold Hybrid (advanced)

Unique soul

Kobolds innately gain trapmaking and scrounging at apprentice level, minor natural weapons, can swim at a trotting speed, darkvision, and minor regeneration.

Ice Kobolds in particular gain 75% cold resistance and 150% cold affinity.

Advanced Kobolds are nearly the same height as a short human, and gain a minor bonus to dodge and stealth.

Your unusual origins give you a unique soul for your species.

You gain combat meditation which includes mental time dilation, fear resistance, pain resistance, and the ability to access your soul space for mana manipulation and improvised spell creation.

Unfortunately, your special soul also gives you a minor penalty to social skills.

Evolutions

Silver Cord

Sprite Information Link

Sprite Materialization

Sprite Habitat

Intellectual Maturity

Gifts and Traits

Draconic Language

Rhydian Language

Enhanced Quintessence Body

Aura Domain

Basic Foundation

Mystical Creation

Meridians/systems

Skin mediocre

Heart mediocre

Vigor mediocre

Muscles mediocre

Head mediocre

Bone mediocre

Nerve mediocre

Tail mediocre

Left arm mediocre

Right arm mediocre

Left leg mediocre

Right leg mediocre

I was… a lot tougher than I had been the last time I gave my sheet a good, long look.

“You have been thinking for too long. Your mind is strange. You have not been meditating, so what have you been thinking about?” Kalika asked me.

I chuckled, “Do you want the medium version or the short version?”

“The short version, I think. I don’t understand where you come from, and a lot of your words, while they are similar to the ones I use, do not make sense the way that you use them.”

I grinned and started pulling fabrics and leather out of my space, eyeing Kalika thoughtfully “Oh, I was just picking apart draconic and seeing if I can create a much better and more efficient language in my head for the way non-dragons use magic.”

She shook her head ruefully. “Of course you were Channeler. The last living channeler I heard of was a gnome in the old world. He created devices that could not be contained by elven magic, that broke the elven war machine so badly that they lost their world to the darkons. Have a care that you do not repeat his performance. He obtained freedom for his people at the cost of his entire world.”

“There is a term for one who creates magics of that magnitude, Channeler, for one who breaks magic so thoroughly that it exposes the entire world to the potential for destruction. That word is WARLOCK.”

That evening I had, despite her protests, created a new set of clothing as well as a new backpack for Kalika. I had a great deal of trouble creating more than tiny handfuls of any sort of materials, and they had to be pretty low on the periodic table or they drained most of my mana pool. I had, however, created something that I was disgustingly proud of.

I may not know the processes for turning iron into steel, but I managed to create a tiny pebble of what is often called ‘spring steel’. An alloy of about 2% carbon, iron, silicon, and manganese, all of which were chemically pure. I was trying for a razor blade, but even just a bead was enough to empty my mana almost completely, but I practically glowed with the knowledge that even if I couldn’t smith an alloy, I might be able to eventually create it! To create more complex substances, I might have to spend quintessence, but after my last experiments with evolution, I was more than willing to improve myself with training and hard work and save that quintessence for something that mattered, like changing into something more human, or maybe creating something that could save someone’s life.

Druids were restrained from wearing any clothing that was never from a living creature, something about artificial constraints messed with their magic, but I was still flush with material. She gave me the stink eye when I presented her a tightly-fitted bodice patterned with wyvern scales, but relaxed considerably when I added in a long leather tunic dyed a similar blue to the bodice’s scales, which emptied me of all the ‘treasure’ pre-finished Wyvern hide that Shiana got from looting. Kalika had human-like feet, and I planned on making her real hard-soled boots, but a decent pair of armored boots alone could take me several days, and after burning my mana trying to summon high-carbon alloys I couldn’t kick in my zone for that amount of time.

On the plus side, because of my enchanted touch, I was able to channel tiny amounts of quintessence into the outfit. It was able to self-repair and self-clean and counted as medium armor despite its lightness and flexibility. Surprisingly enough, once she had received all of the parts, including stiff bear hide elbow and knee cops and bracers and greaves that would fit around her current boots, she actually smiled at me.

All day while I was working on the armor and clothing for her I was also trying to compress my core. After studying the diagram, it was clear that a compressed core was the key to making its energy sweep work, as the initial stage of mana compression would give my core and meridians a ‘weight’ that would create a sort of gravitic and reverse centripetal force to draw in both essence and mana with an affinity. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like I was supposed to capture affinities and draw them, shredding them, into my core for processing… processing that would purify and alter the typed mana to make it into pure essence that I could use for various purposes.

Unfortunately, I was doomed to complete failure. Again and again, I would try to press my core, manipulating it, but it felt like trying to squeeze down a balloon. I would have a marginal amount of success, but then I would run out of endurance and the damned thing would pop back up to full size, nearly filling the entire non-terrarium soul space. Spinning it faster seemed to help, but without compression, there seemed to be a sharp limit as to how fast I could spin it, and pulling essence threads out of it like the diagram suggested just led to the threads collapsing the moment the pressure let up.

The minor essence effect on her new outfit seemed to subdue the aroma pretty effectively, to the point that when Raphael finally stepped into the clearing, Kalika was relaxed enough that she didn’t even poke any holes in him with her spear, which I consider a net bonus.

“Greetings.” The jaguar man stated, giving Kalika the once over, his attention riveted for a moment on her extremely eye-catching armor. “I see you have already met Bran. He has this bad habit of supplying everyone he meets with incredible equipment, and keeps forgetting about the whole ‘asking them to pay’ thing.”

Kalika chortled, and I was surprised a little at how quick to humor she was, with someone her goddess was not demanding she train and who didn’t try to rape or attack her. “Well, he sort of wrecked my outfit. He was so eager to replace it that I think he may have gone a bit overboard.”

Raphael fingered his beautiful armor. “Overboard? You don’t say! And here I thought this gear was merely a step above what you receive when you step out of the tutorial, blinking and nearly naked. Are you telling me this isn’t just one step above a ‘ragged peasant tunic and ‘ragged cloth gloves’?” he asked curiously as Shiana dropped down from the canopy and Cassie stepped out from the bushes. I noticed that, now that she was in armor that was the right size so it didn’t sound like a bag of castanets every time she took a step, she seemed much quieter and more capable of stealth. She was still louder than the rest of us, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she was practicing soft stepping, or as soft a step as a 140-pound dwarf in heavy armor could muster.

Cassie was looking at me with a weirdly indecipherable expression on her face. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I looked over my outfit. With the improvement in my toughness, it was becoming difficult to justify wearing even light leather armor, so I was currently dressed in my shirt and an overshirt that went down to my knees, a sort of vest over it, and a pair of bracers. Anything more, and it could impact my ability to move quickly enough to avoid getting hit. Of course, I was wearing underclothes now, so I wasn’t showing anything off that I did not want to.

“Bran,” Cassie said, “you have gotten huge. You are almost a foot taller than me now. You said you were going to be changing, but I had no idea how much. And you look umm… male. Not like Dwarven male, but before that you were just ‘kobold’, and now you are definitely ‘him’.”

Raphael grinned evilly, “Oh, is our lovely Dwarven warrior losing her heart to the mighty kobold artificer?”

Cassie gave him a flushed glare. “Oh, gods no. I just meant before I kept thinking of Bran like my little sister. Now I have to think of him as my brother, it’s just… hard to get used to.” She grinned at me. “Still, you are a lot younger than I am, so even if you are taller, you are still like my little brother.”

Raphael laughed, “Your little brother that is into sewing, cooking, and slapping people?”

I was liking this asshole, weirdly enough. His insults were direct and friendly, rather than snide and concealed. I was going to try and roll with it. “You know, Raphael, I have been wondering what it would feel like to have all that soft cat fur sliding up and down my…” I winked at him.

Raphael made a noise, I think it was a cross between a gulp and a beep, that came out like ‘gleep’ as he took a step backward. “No, man. I mean, I saw what you were running with when you left camp. I am totally into girls. Just girls.”

I grinned while Shiana let out a disappointed noise. “I was planning on sleeping with Raphael. But I don’t want to upset Bran. I don’t understand what to do now? Is this a love triangle? I could try to invite both of them, but males tend to get more jealous than females unless they are in love with each other?”

Cassie shook her head at Shiana, “No, Bran is joking. He has the typical male juvenile fascination with breasts, he was simply unable to act on them before.”

Shiana nodded, “I was wondering about that. I remember he seemed fascinated with Mae’s breasts when she was with us, but I thought that was simply because of his youth. I am afraid he will be unhappy with kobold females, however, since they don’t seem to possess noticeable breasts until after they have bred. We have also seen his penis, so perhaps he should seek out a female minotaur? Minotaurs are enormous and are well-known for the size and productivity of their breasts.”

It’s amazing just how much darker of a blue my skin was capable of turning. Maybe I shouldn’t get involved in that sort of joking, since I could not seem to come up with anything funny.

Kalika just looked at each of us as we spoke, a weird quirk on her face as she listened to us interact, and then she interrupted. “Your party seems to behave less like a group of monster hunters and more like a family.”

I nodded to her, glad for the change of subject. “We are. Raphael just joined us a couple of days ago but he’s already proven himself both in battle and friendliness. Right now, we are behaving and fighting like a well-oiled basket of… uhh… fish.”

Raphael grinned, “WE got some good fights while we were tracking you down. Why did you run off and leave the party? Shiana said it’s not the first time she had to track you down.”

I glanced at Kalika and then back at my… friends? Wow. They were my friends. “My evolution did strange things to me, and I cannot party traditionally anymore.” I held up my wrist with the band. I was not quite ready to confess that it was a fake, especially since they had three active bands that could be monitoring this conversation.

Kalika mentioned, “There is another way to party. I expected that I would be able to join your team easily, as adventurers. Because of my facility with healing and combat magics, most adventurer teams would allow a druid to join them without question. Your party dynamic, however, is very unusual, especially with Bran’s remedies and the fact that you have a Paladin with healing magics.”

I kept my mouth shut. I had to go with Kalika no matter how things turned out, but I hoped that none of the others had a problem with a 5th party member.

Raphael immediately piped up, “I am completely and totally in favor of it. Several dungeons and mini-raids have a maximum of 5 people, and Bran seems to have a facility for picking up talented party members.” he said, straightening his chin and grasping an imaginary set of lapels before looking down his nose at us pridefully, only a hint of a smile tweaking the corners of his mouth.

Cassie shrugged, “I am often too busy in combat, as the front line fighter, to pay enough attention to the other party members. I hate to admit it, but even with my spells I am much more of an after-combat healer and several of them are far more valuable for keeping me in the fight longer rather than helping my party. I am in favor of having a druid since that was the reason we came to the Winnowrill in the first place. It also will give us a magical ranged punch and some potential non-combat solutions, since Druids are renowned for their ability to communicate with plants and animals we might otherwise be forced to fight for little reward.”

Kalika shook her head. “I am not banded, but I have a spell that will allow me to join a party and share in the rewards. Bran, however, is considered my acolyte. That means that while he will be part of the group, he is not considered a party member, he is my follower.”

Cassie looked at me with wide eyes, “Again? How is it you keep doing that? Party-not-party member. I mean, I am totally in favor of that, especially since you said you were going to meet up with Mae and that would let her join, but it’s becoming a habit.”

Raphael grinned, “I am fine with loopholes. Loophole Bran lets us take 6 people into a 5-man dungeon and I cannot see a single problem with it.”

I shrugged at Raphael, “We are already a loophole. You are the only play..immortal in the party. That means that if we die, we do not respawn. That already gives us a giant experience bonus, but it also means that, when dealing with the system, you are the party leader, so technically the responsibility for this little wolfpack lies entirely on your shoulders.”

Raphael shook his head, “Not a wolfpack, a pard.”

“A what?” I asked him curiously.

“A pard. A hunting group of big cats that are not lions is referred to as a pard. Despite what BBC would have you believe, many cats choose to hunt together when prey is not scarce. We may be territorial, but a time of plenty is a time of friendliness.”

Wow, this guy truly bought into his whole roleplaying persona, but I could live with that. “Very well, you are the putative leader of our pard. Kalika knows of a dungeon fairly close, a killer dungeon, that could satisfy a lot of our needs if we are willing to risk it. I need to enter a dungeon to advance, but that is our plan. The only person that we still haven’t asked is Shiana.”

We all turned to look at Shiana.

Shiana looked very uncomfortable at all the attention, but finally squeaked out, “As Cassie and Raphael said.” and then added, “And she’s pretty, and I don’t think she will make me put my fingers in my butt and then in my mouth.” like that statement explained every single argument both in favor and opposed. Maybe for Shiana, it did.

Kalika turned a little greener than usual. “Shiana, I swear before Aen and all the gods that I will never make you put… make you do that unless our lives depend on it.”

Shiana nodded, “Okay, welcome to our pard-ey then.”

That evening, my culinary expertise finally produced something I would consider truly delicious. It cost half my mana pool, but I was able to produce a few ounces of actual bicarbonate… baking soda, to create fluffy pita bread and create my masterpiece, homemade gyros with strips of marinated bear and drake meat. The vegetables came out perfect, with slightly browned onions and peppers filling the wraps, and I had even managed to use some wild ginger and cucumber to craft a Tzaziki sauce I could be proud of.

This swamp, once I wasn’t running through it at top speed thinking I was the king of the world, was an absolute treasure trove of vegetable wealth, much of it packed with essence boosts. I had even found a sort of tomatillo that I thought could make an excellent tomato substitute, and there were even cinnamon trees.

As we ate I mentioned to Raphael, “I found a stash of tomatillos, so when I get a chance prepare yourself for some real salsa verde.”

He grinned and nodded, “Perhaps I should be the one to prepare that. I do remember my Abuelita’s recipe for salsa, and maybe next time we can make the dinner a team effort?”

I nodded, “That would be amazing.” and enjoyed the flavors of what I considered one of the best meals I had eaten since waking up in a sewer. To top it off I had made a cobbler filled with plump local blueberries and blackberries, topped with sweetened and crispy oatmeal sprinkles and enriched with honey.

Monster masterpiece gyros

This meal has been prepared by a master’s hand, using the freshest and best of essence-enhanced ingredients and beast meats, and charged with magic as it was prepared.

For the next 48 hours, you enjoy the following benefits:

29% increase to received quintessence or experience.

20% increase in mana and fatigue restoration.

12% improvement in all willpower and pain resistance.

Once per day, or twice for the duration, you may recover up to 15% of your health instantly when you receive a fatal, but not critical, wound.

Just remembering this delicious meal makes you feel better.

Winnowrill berry blast cobbler

This meal has been expertly prepared by someone that truly enjoys making delicious desserts, using essence-enhanced ingredients and charged with magic as it was prepared.

For the next 48 hours you receive the following benefits:

12% increase to received quintessence or experience.

15% increase in movement speed.

10% boost to reaction, attack, and recovery speeds.

33% improvement in all willpower resistance.

This magical sugar rush reinforces your will for the coming conflicts.

Kalika looked at me with a raised eyebrow after she took her first bite of the Gyro, watching Raphael chowing down on his third for inspiration on the technique. I nodded to her and whispered, “Yes, I charged my cooking skill with essence, it adds a lot to the food at only a tiny cost in mana.”

She nodded slowly, taking bite after bite with every evidence of enjoyment, and I swear I heard a bit of a whimper once she finished the last bite and reached for another gyro. I had surprised myself by finishing two, but I guess this larger body required much more nutrition. There would not be any leftovers to stash in my storage this time, though.

Shiana, as usual, was overly direct in her praise and started with “For food like this, I would let you put… ” before getting shushed by Cassie.

To be honest, I kinda wished that Cassie had let her finish her statement. Based on his expression, I imagine Raphael would have been similarly interested. Shiana was odd, true, but she was clearly built to be extraordinarily attractive to young human males, and both of our spirits were indeed young human males in the end. For that matter, I didn’t mind her end either, even if she drifted a bit too close to nutballs for me to take the thought seriously.

Mm, nutballs. There was a way of leaching and blanching acorns to make delicious spiced nutballs that I was familiar with. I carefully started chasing the very last bit of berry juice soaked oat cluster around my trencher with my eating knife. As a kobold, I was no girl’s idea of a good time, so it would be best were I to subsume those thoughts beneath something more distracting, like delicious cooking.

Kalika whispered, “You must have an incredible mastery of cooking techniques from your world to produce such a meal, especially over a campfire. Were you some kind of master chef?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “No, my relatives taught me basic techniques, but I have always had good instincts for flavor and texture. Ironically enough, kobolds have greatly improved taste and smell over humans, and that plus the scrounging gift let me taste and smell foods to make sure they are as perfect as I can make them. I am a way, way better cook here than I was at home, and throw in a little mana, and this is what you can get. If I had attended cooking school, I would probably be able to produce way better food than this, especially if I used a real kitchen, but it is a little late now. I was tempted to go to cooking school after leaving the military, though.”

She looked surprised, “You were in the army?”

I shook my head, “No, the navy. Most of the best skills I have here I learned from an early scout training program called the boy scouts, or while I was in the navy. I love the sea and hope to someday become a captain of a great ship if I never return to Earth. A ship with a truly decent kitchen on it.”

She laughed. “Oh, I have never heard of a ship large enough to even have a small kitchen, but if you survive long enough to become close to human, I am sure that someday you will command the mightiest vessel to ever grace the Tallasan, and become the scourge of Torvaldsland. You may be damaged in certain ways, and it may take a great deal of time for your foundation to recover, but if you regularly produce things like my armor and this food I can certainly see how you turned things to your advantage.”

Wait, was she flirting? I looked more closely at Kalika where she was sitting on a log, but I couldn’t tell. My nose didn’t tell me that she was interested, however, so I turned towards cleaning the dinner implements. “Well, it did sort of help make up for getting born into the body of quite possibly one of the most pathetic monsters ever to exist that was still capable of speech. I am much more fit now, but” and I waved a hand towards Raphael, who was whispering something to Shiana that made her blush. “those who were born here, and the immortals, who have been through the same experiences I have, could probably still squash me like a mouse under a wagon wheel.”

She shook her head. “Do not undervalue your experiences. Remember that a mighty warrior could easily destroy the most powerful mage in fisticuffs, but your mind and will are your greatest weapons. A Mage could extinguish a similarly powerful warrior if given the slightest time to prepare. If you knew you were going to fight a brute like Raphael, would your first choice be wrestling and natural weapons?”

I shook my head, “Not the slightest chance. I’d set up about a million traps and poisons and tools to stop him before he ever even got into wrestling range, and then run like hell throwing caltrops and stuff behind me. I could probably ambush him in melee from hiding, but even with him having to build a new fighting skillset with escrima and hand to hand he’d still turn me into a bloody paste in seconds.”

Kalika nodded, “Exactly. You are a creator, not a destroyer. You would use your natural talents to defeat him, instead of fighting his strengths.”

I nodded, “I just hope it’s enough. From what I understand, the creatures I have to defeat to save my worlds are at the very very top of the food chain. I will need it.”

She smiled a little and then helped me finish cleaning the tools and put them away. “For what it may be worth, Aen has made it clear that she supports your goals, and her support is more valuable than you can imagine. There are always bigger monsters, but in the end, a much smaller and weaker hero always manages to defeat them. You may not think of yourself as a hero yet, but the hero is a title that is assigned after a victory, not a magical crown.”

With that, we set up short watches and then turned in for the rest of the evening and morning’s sleep. I was betting that, with the banded, the hero was truly a magical crown.