“I told you, these things are everywhere,” I said.

“And I told you, they weren’t worth worrying about,” said Kelser.

“Only because I was prepared for them,” I said.

“You didn’t even need my help to take it down,” he said.

“Paris helped,” I said.

“What do you mean? She tried to run away!” he said.

“No, she made loud noises and failed to run away,” I said. “Poor shark monster must have lost his mind seeing a scary monster like her.” I faced Paris the Fil Tusker and pinched its face. Her skin was too tough for me to pinch, and it clearly didn’t understand the gesture, but whatever. She seemed to like the seaweed I was feeding her, so at least I had another reliable source of food for her in the winter. Not that I’d been worried about that before. She seemed content with dried grass and evergreen leaves.

“And this soup sucks,” he said as he tried to eat the shark soup I’d made from the Limu Dogfish.

I shrugged. “All I had were salt and seaweed.”

“Yes, exactly. The meat was salty enough on its own. The monster literally came from the sea. And the seaweed tastes weird,” he said.

“Paris likes it,” I said.

“Paris likes grass!” he exclaimed.

We kept chattering away as we finished lunch. We were on our way back to the encampment along the River Teg, hauling our harvest of salt, shark monster meat, seaweed and glass, all the way back. It would have been impossible without Paris, which made me thankful again for the giant Fil Tusker.

I kept asking Kelser about the definition of annihilation in his language for the rest of the journey, but he didn’t say anything new. The language barrier for this word seemed too big to overcome over a few days, which was ridiculously annoying. I couldn’t even tell if I was dumb for not understanding what Kelser was saying, or if it was Kelser’s fault for not being able to explain it well enough.

When we returned to the encampment, the first thing I did was reconvene a meeting of the elders. I’d been a little worried about leaving the tribesmen alone, since I had no idea when the immortals would make their move, but the strangely normal night sky had given me the confidence to head out on my own for just a little while. Thankfully, nothing had gone wrong so far. The foraging and hunting parties had returned for the day, the wine-like drink was being made, and we were expecting the people who had gone North to the tundra and South to the natural copper mines to return any day now.

“Okay,” I said, very carefully, while gesturing for Kelser not to say anything. “I need all of you to listen very carefully to the word that I am about to say. After I say it, I need each of you to think about what that word means to you. Think about a definition, maybe a sentence in which you can use it, any similar or related words, and also, try to describe its meaning through an analogy. Sound good?” They nodded. “Alright. The word is: annihilation.”

Some of the elders frowned. Others made different faces. Some, like elder Kezler, looked to the ground, muttering silently, or whispering their thoughts under their breaths.

I waited patiently until it looked like everybody had their answers. I went around the campfire, asking everyone to whisper their answers in my ears so nobody else could hear it. After making one round, I went back to a few people, and asked them if they’d given me every possible meaning to the word, at which point they said no and whispered in my ears again.

I sat back down with my brows furrowed in confusion, and my restless heart beating relentlessly against my chest. It was the same. Their answers for this obscure word with an unusual second meaning, were all the same. These were different tribes, all of whom lived in different places and had different traditions. They had to have different dialects or variations of words, right? But then why were their answers the same?

Just to make sure, I told them to repeat the word to me one by one when I pointed at them. Then, I turned off my translation magic, and heard the word as they said it. One by one, I pointed at each elder, strained my ears, and heard the same word leave their lips. They even pronounced it the same way! I also asked them to repeat their strange second definition in their language, and confirmed that I had been right about the first and second definitions using different words, both of which my translation magic translated to ‘complete destruction.’

Frustrating as it was, I had to give up. This was a dead end. I’d think about it some more on my own time, but right now, I was in a meeting and the night was wearing on and these old men and women would be getting tired soon. I asked about the farms and herded monsters, before showing them the pieces of glass that I’d prepared. I told them I was going to use this glass to make some more light magic spells, and that I wanted some young people to hang around me while I made the spells. Hopefully, that would help the humans come up with their own spells, soon.

I also repeated that the kind of salt that we’d gathered wasn’t going to be enough to preserve the meat on its own, and we went over some ideas on how to preserve meat for the winter months using a mixture of salt, smoking, and relatively airtight clay jars and pots, which could be made even better with some earth and air magic.

I went to sleep that night still thinking about annihilation and its strange second meaning. That clunky second definition kept bouncing around my head as I drifted into unconsciousness once again. I realized, this was probably going to become a nightly ritual.

---

“A little more to the right,” I said.

“Like this?” asked Kann Imm.

“No, a little more,” I said.

“Here?” she said.

“Perfect,” I said. “You, move a little to the left.”

“Like this?” asked Kirs Nare.

“No, a little more,” I said.

“Here?” he said.

“Perfect,” I said. “Couples.” I shook my head. They really suited each other, despite their contrasting personalities.

I was making the two of them move the pieces of glass around above me while I hugged the floor and stared at the way the light refracted and focused. I didn’t have any scientific instruments, and my glass wasn’t very clear, and it certainly wasn’t shaped into the kind of lenses I would need for basic light experiments, but just watching the way the light was being changed by the glass was already confirming many things about the way light worked in this world. Essentially, it was confirming that it worked similarly to light on my Earth, which was great news.

I wouldn’t be able to make any laser spells just yet, since lasers aren’t just ‘concentrated’ light, which is what many science fiction stories make them out to be, but I could manipulate light a lot better now. I took the shirt off my back and made Kelser hold it above the ground. I ignored the strange looks I was getting from the many onlooking humans, and focused on the shadow the tunic was casting on the ground.

I should also take this moment to mention, that I had long since made underwear for myself, which was why I was willing to take off my tunic. Anyways, I raised my hands towards the shadow, and cast my brand new light magic spell.

Half of the shadow was wiped out, as my hands started to glow. I smiled and turned to the young humans who were standing around me, many of them staring at me in awe. Even Kelser’s eyes were wide open in admiration. He must be as excited by this spell as I was!

“This is amazing, Cas!” he said.

“Teacher Cas, you’ve outdone yourself!” said Kirs Nare.

“This spell could change everything!” said Kann Imm.

Other young humans praised me too. I accepted their praise, a wide grin on my face.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this!” said Cas. He returned my tunic and I wore it with pride. The little red head was so excited he was practically jumping in place with joy. “You’ve made a spell that—”

“Yes!” I said, putting a hand in the air to stop him. I’d wanted all of these young people around to inspire them to try to make brilliant spells for themselves. A little dramatic flair would help make this moment unforgettable.

“I have made a spell,” I said, speaking each word slowly and deliberately as I paced around the crowd. “That can reflect light!”

I closed my eyes, struck a pose and waited for more praise. But none came. I opened my eyes and saw all the young humans giving me awkward looks.

Kelser scratched his chin. Kirs coughed into his fist. Kann looked away.

Well, I mused to myself. This moment was definitely unforgettable.