Chapter 10

Their rest stop went uneventful, with Tyriel rousing everyone at first light to get back on the road, after conversing with Rory he was happy to hear they were still on track to reach the bridge by mid-afternoon. He planned to push on up the river once they arrived, he was anxious to get to the wreck as so much was riding on what they could salvage from it.

Once they were back on the road he pulled out his books to study, he was going through a chapter on manifesting his mana outside his body. He was comparing what the book was saying to the knowledge he had obtained from his skill book, it was a chore as he needed to force the knowledge to come forward against the compulsion to abandon it till he mastered mana saturation.

After hours of this he took a break to allow his will to rebuild, he wished he could find that human mage and slap him across the head for being such an arrogant elitist. Kasric laughed at hearing this, saying more than likely he was dead as most don’t create skill books till they are old so that a part of them can live on as a legacy. He just shook his head then holding out his hand placed his concentration on forming a ball of mana in his hand.

First, he sent his senses to his core, then he followed the path through his arm till he got close to his hand. Once there he grabbed hold of a thread then coaxed it to his palm, where he hit a wall as he tried to coax it through his skin. He tried several times only for it to fall apart once he hit his skin, letting out a frustrated grunt he relaxed his hold on his mana then leaned back in his seat to gaze out the window,

K’rick looked over at him and seeing the dejection on his face leaned over toward him patting his leg. “Don’t let it get you down, we all struggled in the beginning just don’t give up. Take a good look at what's stopping you then analyze it to find out away through it. One does not have to break the wall if he but travels along the wall to a hole through it,” Tyriel laughed “Thank you for your wisdom my little Confucius!” K’rick titled his head “Don’t recognize that name but will take it as a compliment.”

Tyriel just shook his head, he would need to learn this world's colloquialisms so people would understand his humor otherwise he just appeared as an idiot. “I’m working on an exercise to make a ball of raw mana in my hand but I can’t get it to go through my skin it's like hitting that wall you were talking about.” K’rick smiled “Think not of your skin as a wall but as a sieve then sift your mana through the fine mesh.” Tyriel blinked he was right, your skin was not solid but full of pores, he quickly went back into his body. This time he grabbed the thread but as he got close to his skin he willed it to thin out and become more gaseous, he carefully watched as it neared his skin only to almost lose it in his exuberance when it started to pass through.

Catching himself he steeled his mental control, then watched as the mana started to pool in his palm forming a sphere about the size of a golfball. It was a white wispy substance that glowed slightly while swirling in his palm. K’ricks voice interrupted his trance like stare at it, “Excellent now try to condense it to a liquid state.”

Tyriel dutifully gave it a try, he concentrated on it trying to force it into the middle of the sphere so it would condense. “Imagine your will as a glass sphere enveloping the mana then decrease the size of it till you feel pressure.” He did as K’rick advised taking a few tries before the mana didn’t pass through his will, then he finally trapped it inside and started shrinking the sphere. It steadily shrank in size as beads of sweat formed on his forehead due to his struggling at keeping control, till finally, he felt pressure fighting against him when it reached the size of one of those ball links in an old pull chain for a light.

He was startled when everyone in the carriage started clapping at him, losing his concentration the ball disappeared with a small pop. Laughing K’rick told him that was something else he would need to practice, if he couldn’t keep his concentration through distractions what good would it do him in combat. When Tyriel frowned he told him not to take it badly everyone had to learn this he just was learning it later than others normally did, all things being equal he should take heart as he was learning it a lot faster than most did.

He perked up at this and was about to smile till SK’irre piped in “Of course they were children, not a grown adult.” seeing his face Kasric couldn’t help releasing one of her loud belly laughs, frowning at first Tyriel eventually had to laugh with her. After a while, he laughed at himself again when he realized that he shouldn’t have struggled so much as he had already performed this action when activated the magic items he had as he had imbued them with his mana. This exercise just had him do it without the artifacts, when he mentioned this to the others K’rick told him that was the point of it, it was to teach kids how to use artifacts while also determining if they could become a mage by controlling mana outside their bodies.

By showing he could it was promising that he would be able to learn spells like Sk’irre eventually, plus if he applied what he just learned to his other exercise he was struggling with the technique would work there too. Tyriel had a eureka moment, he realized that he needed finer control of his mana and that it required an individual to know a little of anatomy so they could use the natural blood vessels and cells to saturate the body's tissues with mana. Once he figured that out he took hardly any time for him to perform the task, he reveled in the feeling of power that coursed through his body, it was a very heady experience.

Sk’irre warned him that it was very addictive as he chastised her earlier for getting caught up in the power surge. He apologized to her for the way he brought it up to her since till now he really hadn’t known the effect it had on a person's mind. She assured him it was okay as he was right about the situation just not fully knowledgeable about what lead to the situation. Their talk was interrupted by his stomach loudly growling, laughing he told Rory to find a place to stop for lunch plus he needed a bathroom break as his bladder finally let him know of his neglect of it.

As they ate Rory informed him they made better time than he predicted so they would arrive at the bridge probably in about one mark. Tyriel knew this roughly translated into about three hours, based on this he went ahead and told them how he wanted to get the horses unhitched and the carriage stowed once they arrived so they could go ahead and push up the river. Once they started he wanted two of the boys to go ahead of the group to act as scouts then the rest of them would follow with the horses in the middle of the formation with him and Rory in front and Kasric bringing up the rear. The other two boys would flank the horses while the Tor-Khoth (Tyriel made sure to use their racial name whenever he addressed the group though in his head he would always think of them as kobolds, too many years of gaming habit) road the horses so they could keep up and also guide them.

Garris and Cerbal volunteered to scout the way, leaving just working out how they should report back if they spot anything. After the planning session, they all loaded up to complete the last leg of their road trip. Tyriel spent the time practicing his mana control slowly progressing to a larger mana ball once condensing the smaller one became easier, this helped the time to fly by as it seemed he just got started when Kasric touched his shoulder saying they were there.

He sighed then saw the look of concern on her face “What is it?” she pointed out the window “Someone is using the campground, it looks like they just arrived too.” he followed her finger looking down the turn off he spotted eight large wagons with a group of people swarming over them. Scanning the area he noticed they didn’t have a sentry up here by the road and hadn’t noticed them yet. Softly calling up to Rory he told him to go ahead across the bridge. Turning to Kasric “They can’t see us from down there so we will unload on the other side and get down the bank before they can get back up here with any luck we’ll begone before they notice.”

Stopping on the other side they quickly got off the carriage and helped the Lupins unhitch the horses after which, T’raim ran up touching the carriage promptly making it disappear with a soft pop. Carefully leading the horses down the bank, they loaded the kobolds on them at the bottom then started upriver while Phoebus stayed up top to watch till they got out of sight then he would catch up.

Shortly he came running up letting them know it was all clear as he took his place on the right of the group. Tyriel called a halt to the group then had them gather around him, when he had everyone he warned them that he was going to reveal his true form so that they knew what he really looked like plus he wanted to get used to moving and fighting in it. There was a mixture of excited and fearful looks though nobody actually put forth a reason not to, so taking a deep breath he willed his masking to turn off causing a round of laughter as he remembered he needed to remove his clothes and started peeling them off as fast as he could.

As before back in the cave he felt a tingling in his body as he watched his skin morph into scales followed by the feeling of his body stretching and swelling. There was a collective gasp as his true form was revealed, when it was over he found himself looking down at everyone. Since Kasric was around seven feet tall he estimated his new height was at eight feet, quite taller than when he was in the cave. He also noticed his scales were thicker especially across his chest, his eyesight, hearing, and smell improved, plus his fingers now had retractable claws instead of the permanent ones he had before.

Looking down at his legs he found they now had the reverse knee set up like a cat's hind legs and very well muscled. He believed he could lower his front half and run on all fours quite easily, his tail had also grown in length and thickness, plus the blade of bone at the end was now about a foot long and very sharp. “This is not how I looked before when I first got here, I’m a lot taller and more heavily muscled.” K’rick stepped up to him taking a closer look at his scales “It’s because you were successful in saturating your mana which caused your body to morph into the young adult phase of your race.”

“As you improve on this technique plus activate your affinities you will change more as your body assimilates your magic into your being. Based on your skeletal form you will be what we called a True Blood as you show more of the draconic nature. Lesser blood Khoth had more humanoid features, in their society only True Bloods could rule.”

As Tyriel listened to him he stretched his muscles reveling in the freedom he felt only realizing now that part of the trapped feeling he had been experiencing since he’s been here was because of hiding his true form. He turned to T’raim asking him to bring out his weapons, his new size made him realize that they would be to small more like daggers now than swords. T’raim pulled them out and handed them over to him, as he took them into his hands they became covered in a golden glow, then before their eyes they stretched till they matched his growth in an equivalent size to what they were before.

“You also were given true Ormrvigtonn it seems, they were the preferred weapon and made so they would resize for whatever form you decided to take.” K’rick glanced closer at the swords “Though that appears to be the only enchantment on them. Still a princely gift!”

After stretching out his various muscles he practiced a few forms then satisfied told everyone that their formation would change with him being the center front line fighter, he was about to say tank but realized they wouldn’t know that reference. He motioned for them to go ahead and start hiking upriver, after everyone started moving he asked Kasric what term they used for his position in the formation, “ We call that the Vanguard while the people on the side are flankers if you have people who move around a lot they are your skirmishers, leaving the backline as your supports.”

They forged ahead up the river, this time with so many people scanning for trouble, they found more evidence of the shipwreck upriver that had been washed down from the wreck site by heavy floodwaters. Here and there they found pieces of wood planking or brass fixtures wedged behind rocks nothing of real value but enough to confirm what he had been telling them was really there.

They traveled well into the night as everyone could see in the dark so it wasn’t a major issue, then around midnight Tyriel called it and had everyone start setting up a light camp area to get some rest and start first thing in the morning. They had no fire as another perk of spacial storage was it kept everything in the same condition as you when you put it in, if it was hot or cold it stayed hot or cold, plus nothing could rot and go bad. This meant all their supplies were fresh and no need for a fire to cook as the meals were precooked and remained hot, a cheat Tyriel didn’t mind over utilizing.

He found he wasn’t really tired enough to sleep so he told Garris who drew first watch that he was going to do a little scouting of the area to burn off excess energy. He first ventured further ahead on their path for tomorrow then not really finding anything decided to scale the side of the river wall to explore the forest above. With his new body, he found scaling the cliff far easier than when he was in his elven form, the claws and muscles helped propel him up the cliff faces with hardly any effort.

Exploring the top he discovered something he had missed in his earlier travel through here since he stayed in the river bed. The trees along the river gorge were of regular size but as you progressed into the forest away from it they grew in size till they rivaled the great redwoods from his old world earth.

Climbing one of them he reached the top and peered out to see how far the forest extended only to find even taller trees further in blocking his view, he would need to be airborne if he wanted to see the extent of this forest. While he was gazing a tingling went up his spine giving him a sense of imminent danger. Instinctively he ducked down letting go of his handhold and falling to the next limb down. As he fell he heard a soft swoosh then a flap of wings, a set of large talons sliced through where he had been setting before.

Peering through the branches he watched a massive owl slowly fly off to land in another large tree disappearing in the foliage. If he hadn’t listened to his instinct he would have been a nice lizard meal for that thing, its wingspan was easily fifty feet across. He would need to be more careful realizing that his first trip through here had been sheer blind luck he hadn’t run into anything. He headed back to the camp wanting to be there encase something showed up looking for a snack.

Arriving back at camp he informed Garris what he had seen telling him to keep an eye on the sky as well as the ground. Garris laughed telling him they were used to beasts like that and informing him there were larger creatures in this forest, but told him not to worry there was a system to it. All the powerful creatures had a territory and would only let certain creatures stay in their area, these lesser creatures also had a territory thus progressing down till you reached the weakest in line.

This meant you wouldn’t be overwhelmed by creatures all of the same power, you still had to be careful but once you figured out the power structure you could then plan how to avoid the creatures above you in power. Based on the owl it preyed on anything his size or larger meaning most big predators would avoid the night so as not to be prey for it. They would have to be more worried about running into them during the day as the owl was only a nocturnal hunter.

Saying good night to Garris he found a place to lay down, before drifting off into sleep he made himself a note to have Kasric explain the power structure of creatures to him more so he could better plan their future adventures better. Then with a sigh at how much he didn’t know he drifted off into sleep.

It seemed he had only just fallen to sleep when he was awakened by a tapping on his shoulder and a low hiss to be silent. Focusing his eyes he recognized Kasric kneeling beside him and pointing at her ears then up to the ridgeline. Concentrating he heard a soft growling conversation drifting down from above intermixed with a weird laughing sound. Kasric leaned in next to his head and whispered “Gnolls.”

Tyriel looked up at the ridgeline with a thoughtful expression, “I can go up and see how many there are, if there aren't to many we can farm them for the xp, but we have to figure out how to get them down here or the rest of you up there.” Not hearing any response from her he turned his head to look at her, finding her just staring at him with a shocked expression. “What? Did I miss something?”

She shook her head to break out of her shock “ You would actually farm people for power? We thought you were different from the others!” she hissed at him. He blinked at her then hastily held up his hands “Wait! Arent Gnolls just another type of monster, like Goblins or am I assuming something in error?”

“Gnolls are another type of beast-kin and while they tend to be xenophobic are not dungeon spawn like goblins,” Kasric informed him in a dry matter-of-fact voice. Still trying to placate her “I’m sorry! Where I’m from they were always considered monsters to be killed on sight.” she quirked her eye at him “Thought you said you had no monsters or beast-kin on your world you called them fantasy?” Sighing he did a put up on look “Yes they were made up. I meant in the games we played they were considered evil monsters that were killed, but they only existed in our imagination.”

Shaking her head again at him “Your world is just so weird! You create games that award you for killing people and destroying things while saying they want to stop the violence. You know how insane that sounds?” He was about to respond in denial but once he thought about what she said “When hearing it put like that I guess it does sound counterproductive to each other.” She rolled her eyes at him then turned back to look up at the ridgeline.

Shrugging his shoulders he moved on “So what do you recommend then since they're just people?” she huffed at him then thought for a second “They are probably just exploring like we are, or a hunting party harvesting materials. They have a town just at the base of the mountains to the north, though it is odd their this far away from it.”

Turning away and looking at him “I say for now we just stay quiet down here and hope they don’t spot us then move on in the morning be careful to not draw their attention. If we do or we run into them later we can deal with that then. Just don’t attack them first and ask me in the future before you go attacking any other thinking beings.”

Holding up his hands again in surrender “Okay, okay! Sheesh I said I was sorry.” then cocking his head “Although I might point out how you and the boys were treating the kobolds what with them being a thinking race you equated to, how did you put it a smart animal?” She chuffed “Fair enough I will stop, but just be aware this is not your world so be cautious around humanoids.”

“Fine! Tell you what tomorrow we can go over a list of what my world called monsters and you can point out what is different here so I don’t make a mistake in the future. Deal?” She chuffed again then settled back down leaning against a boulder, “Like raising a child! I left home to avoid that and here I am having to raise one anyway.” “Hey! I resemble that remark!” he laughed then followed her example and laid back down, the lupins would let them know if anything changed, although he was nervous in his head.

Why were they here, did they find the wreck? If not what would happen if they went that direction would they have to fight them then? Tomorrow he decided they would push on until they arrived at the wreck then they would rest, that way if the gnolls hadn't found it they could get there first and lay claim to it and defend it if necessary. He totally ignored the other issue of what they would do if the Gnolls had found the wreck before them, they would deal with that if it came up and decide then.