The Wisp ran its vision over the underground pool one more time, the flicker of irritation spurning its core flames.

[I’m with you Azu, it just doesn't make sense.] Hazel said unhelpfully. [It’s like she teleported in.]

[Obviously.] The Wisp snapped. [And why are you so bad with names? Azure? Hazel? Are you going to name the fortress ‘Gray’ next? Or perhaps ‘taupe’?]

The Wisp withdrew into personal thought, slightly regretting its pettiness. Only slightly though. They were going on the third hour of searching now, searching for wherever this ‘Numi’ had appeared from to find herself a spot next to that pond. Despite all that effort however, neither the Wisp nor Hazel had been able to see any hole at all, let alone one large enough to swim, dive, or climb through.

Put aside the irritation of the search though, an alarming curiosity was now burrowing itself deep into the Wisp’s mind, a nagging feeling that told it to set aside its directive to solve this question.

[Woah, why so… blue?] Hazel chuckled. [But seriously- Why are you so hung up on this? Are you that disappointed we aren’t able to pick up a few more colonists?]

The Wisp sent one more mana pulse out, trying to pick up holes in the rock face by throwing tons of particles and counting which came back. To its chagrin, just about every one did.

[Negative.] The Wisp’s core flickered as it turned around and began to head back. The thaumaturgic engine had probably recovered enough slivers of mana to at least begin designing a cultivation hall.

[Then what?]

[Then…] The Wisp stalled, not quite wanting to admit the real reason. [Teleportation is impossible, the templates indicate as much. Either she fell in through some cleverly disguised hole, or…]

The Wisp trailed off to let Hazel’s mind fill in the blanks. In actuality, the Wisp couldn’t think of another scenario, but it surmised that with the right prompt, Hazel would probably make up something tangentially possible through the lens of arcane fiction. And sure enough, Hazel brought forward a theory within a minute.

[...or she’s actually an alternate form of one of the stone foxes?] Hazel finished thoughtfully. [It does make sense, I mean you saw how intelligent they were right? It would explain why they hover around the base.]

The Wisp rolled its flames back in a shrug. It had now a little over a week of pestering from Hazel to draw experience from, and it knew that debating or denying her theory would no doubt earn the Wisp no end of headache. It was better to just ignore her.

The Wisp sent out a few more pulses as it floated back, looking for any discrepancy in the ravine that would explain Numi’s sudden appearance. At Hazel’s request as well, the Wisp inspected the various materials they found in the cavern, absorbing every mushroom, fur sample, and fungal spore. Thanks to these efforts, they completed a plentitude of templates, though nowhere near as many as they had when subsuming the wood and cloth alternatives.

Unfortunately however, they had no luck in regards to metals or ores. With the huge surface area of the ravine, the Wisp would’ve bet a template that they’d find at least some trace amount, but not a glint nor a shine adorned the walls.

[Azu.] The Wisp snapped back from its surroundings.

[Yes?]

[What do you think happened to her parents? Surely she has family somewhere out there.]

The Wisp stayed silent, pondering. Hazel wasn’t wrong of course, the girl was way too young to be alone, but Numi hadn’t been able to remember much except what direction her town was in and how dangerous the storm had been. But that, combined with the severity of the injuries she had when they found her? Well, the Wisp wasn’t planning on making any bets on their survival anytime soon.

[If the surface is as dangerous as our short foray earlier would imply?] The Wisp crackled its flames. [Then my answer would have to be negative.]

[There's no way her kind would entirely abandon a settlement, right?] Hazel replied. [Maybe there's a bunch of beleaguered refugees still out there…]

The Wisp could see where this line of thought was going, and it didn’t like it.

[Negative.] The Wisp stopped in place. [We can barely defend the gate as it is, we cannot leave it now, not even if a village did burn outside.]

[You can’t mean that!] Hazel balked. [I know the soul fracture wasn’t kind to you, but that would be directly against our directive!]

[Incorrect, our directive is to build a refuge and defend it, not to galavant around the locale looking for the inhabitants.]

Hazel scoffed. [That’s the bare minimum of the goal, and you know it. The bigger picture though? Saving a village is practically what we were made to do!]

[The directive…]

[The mere fact that we were activated means that some horrible calamity has befallen the world, and the directive is a means to make sure something survives that. And looking outside?] Hazel snorted. [Well I don’t think it takes a computation spellcoder to realize they need our help to get here. We have to search as soon as possible.]

The Wisp flickered in defeat, buzzing a few core lengths in random directions before answering.

[You are incredibly irritating.] It said finally. [But…]

[It’s a gift.] She interjected smugly.

[...but you bring up an acceptable point.] The Wisp sent a small shock at the interruption. [I will insist on at least a little fortification though.]

[That could take too long.]

[We have to look towards the fortress and the kid first. We’ll be no help with a destroyed thaumaturge engine.]

[Fine. But after that?]

[After that, I will consent to leading a search.]

[Always knew you had a core of gold.]

[It’s azure, apparently.]

…

Numi’s dad had raised her to be many things, but stupid was decidedly not one of them.

When she woke up in a strange, smooth room in a ‘refuge’ operated by a being that claimed to be the same as the mythical tales told by the school teachers? Well, lets just say she contained some doubts. So when they’d begun asking questions about her family and town, she’d done what her father had taught her and employed tactical ‘I don’t really remember too well…’s at every opportunity until they had left her to her own devices.

It wasn’t entirely false of course. Numi didn’t know how she’d gotten in that cavern, nor where dad had gone, only that one moment they’d been galloping down the road and the next she’d woken up in an alien storeroom surrounded by her father’s familiar familiars.

Though there were a fair few more than Numi had thought there were.

They had taken her on a brief tour of the somewhat disappointingly small fortress soon after she’d eaten, but even with the small footprint Numi was still somewhat amazed by the high roofs and occasional intricate carving. The rooms that were there seemed to all be built large enough to handle a crowd, with even the storerooms and bedroom being larger than her family’s apartment had been back in Kicno. The carved pillars and sole fountain in the entrance hall also inspired some awe, each seeming like they’d be right at home in a city square or a king’s garden, but somehow fit right in with the surrounding stonework, as if they’d been carved rather than built. In fact, the only complaint she had with anything was that there were no lights in the fortress at all, forcing her to rely on her innate low-light vision.

She sat up once she heard the stone scraping outside, a sure sign that one of dad’s familiars had decided to come back. Opening the door, a small squad of four came in, the leader distinguished by a chipped left ear and numerous scratches along its muzzle. Lifting it up as the group came to a halt in front of her bed, Numi sat down on the bed and stared at it, waiting for the coming report.

[Good evening, my lady.] The fox known as Chip telepathed. [My team has little to report, only that the Abductor is searching the caverns for some unknown purpose.]

Numi nodded and set the fox down, patting his back as she did so.

“Thanks Chip. Why don’t you rest?”

Chip bowed its golemic head, the four of them chittering as they left. On the dresser, the twitchy Wiggles jumped down and sat beside her and growled softly. He was almost a pristine golem, and the longest that Numi had known, having been given to her on her sixth birthday. Hence his name.

[The devil is probably trying to craft some damnable narrative.] Wiggle’s voice rasped in her head. [I suspect more attempts to gaslight you soon enough.]

“But why?” Numi laid her head on the wall, confused. “What are they trying to do?”

She began petting Wiggles as she tried to think up an angle for her kidnappers. When she and her spymaster had first tried to rationalize it, they’d come to the conclusion that she was being ransomed, but after inspecting the fort and having the foxes watch the ‘wisp’, she was beginning to doubt that. After all, her captor seemed to be rich, excessively so, and while her dad had tried to keep her out of the financial side, she knew her family was nothing of the sort. And while the gate in the entrance hall was all but impenetrable by her standards, they apparently hadn’t seen fit to guard her at all, and the gate was only guarded by simple unmoving traps. It didn’t make too much sense.

[I don’t know exactly.] Wiggles sighed. [It could be insane for all we know, but I assure you we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ve already assigned Agent Whitepaw to monitor them, and nothing gets past her. It's only a matter of time.]

Numi nodded. Whitepaw was another one of the older golems, which normally would’ve meant Wiggles would assign her to lead the new ones if only for the fact that Numi had been using her to spy on people for ages. There had been a few times where even Numi had questioned the wisdom in giving a child such an effective toy, but now she could only feel gratitude that they had the experience now.

“I’ll leave it to you then.” Numi scratched behind the fox’s ears, drawing out a rare chitter from the grizzled golem. “What about the cubs then? Are they doing well?”

Wiggles growled.

[The cubs are practically useless. No spellcoded combat, casting, or skulking! Light-sworn the lot of them…] Wiggles mumbled the last part, but shrunk a little once he realized that Numi heard the curse. [Not to say we can’t teach them, of course! But your father could’ve put in a few more templates, is what I’m saying…]

“He must’ve been pressed for time.” Numi noted. “He always said mass-animating was incredibly hard.”

[And incredibly illegal.]

Numi looked away with a hmph.

[It doesn’t look like that will matter too much though.] Wiggles hastily continued. [Not with the eternal darkness and tempest and all that.]

“I guess.” Numi continued stroking the smooth stone. Really it felt more like scales than fur to her, but then again her father had always said stone was easier to work with magically. “Then any progress with the door? Wasn’t Bartholomew’s pack working on it?”

Numi suppressed a giggle as she always did when thinking about the fox. Her dad had created him to act as a tutor and named him after some long dead scholar, but she’d never been able to take it completely seriously.

[Him and Onyx.] Wiggles stretched its forelimbs as it finally got up. [The latest report said that he thought he found an avenue of attack. Something about converting a mana flow instead of blowing through it.]

“You told him no on the soul burst idea, right?”

[I told him you didn’t like the idea very much. Doesn’t stop him from scaring the cubs though.]

Numi sighed. Ol’ Barth was always the strict kind of instructor, and while was pretty sure he wouldn’t actually sacrifice the foxes he led, she still felt a pang of sympathy for them. Maybe she’d tell Wiggles to give them an extra day off for the trouble.

Wiggles jumped off the bed and walked to the door, a small twitch of the ears revealing his stored worry. He’d been pretty busy ever since she’d disappeared from her father’s cart a few days ago, and the foxes had only woken up a few hours before she had. Whitepaw had revealed later that Wiggles had almost gone insane watching over her grievous injuries, though the others weren't sure how she could’ve known that from his stoic demeanor.

[I’m off to lead some combat exercises.] Wiggles looked back and barked, alerting the guard outside. [Call me back if any interesting reports filter in.]

Numi waved him off as he pushed open the door, silently pitying the cubs he was about to teach. As soon as she heard the door shut though, she sat up and called up one of the few signalling exercises she knew, practicing twirling and expanding a force mana flow. It was a simple spell, something meant almost purely for developing her casting efficiency, but without the signalling staff her father had given her, it was almost all she could do.

She berated herself as she twisted the tiny mana flow she created. The staff had been right in the cart with her, but she hadn't held onto it like her dad had asked her to. She really only had herself to blame that it wasn’t there now, seeing as everything she had been holding or wearing had come with her. Whenever she got back to dad Numi was certain there’d be a tongue-lashing, but for now she’d have to make do with the exercises.

As she sparked the flow however, Numi suddenly thought of something and extinguished it. Of course there was something else she could do! You didn’t need a signalling staff to cast spells, it was just that most were too complicated to wield without it. Trying to cast, say, a fireball, took so many mental components and conversions that most developing mages couldn’t keep track of it all, leaving the whole spell to collapse under the heavy hammer of the actual casting. But not all spells were that complicated. Some were just as simple as defining a vector and force.

She concentrated as she focused the spell, preparing a convalescence of mana at the tips of her fingers. Despite the chill of the stale air in the fortress, her felt the warmth that came with casting as it routed through her hands. After around ten slow minutes of collection, a process that stretched her attention span, she stopped and looked towards the door.

“Dad, I hope you’re watching for this signal…”

And with that, she released it, sending a huge pulse of mana from inside the refuge, and it flew off in all directions. A spell that had a single simple objective, to act as a call of help for those who could detect it.

A flare for those with the means to see it.