Mary-Ann was surprised to find that it actually wasn’t so much a cave as a den. The opening was so small that Al had to crawl in on his hands and knees; he even had to wiggle though one part on his belly. After going back via a twisted path the tunnel suddenly shot upwards and Al would have had a hard time climbing up if not for the small holes dug into the side that allowed for him to climb up it like a ladder. It was then that Mary-Ann figured out that this had to be a place that Al had, if not dug, then at least modified for himself.

“Al, how did you find this place?” She asked as they climbed up to a flat area that opened up into a surprisingly comfortable looking small cavern. The cavern was nearly circular and about fifteen feet wide. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dried grass the whole area was gently illuminated by a couple of dimly glowing crystals in the ceiling which was high enough to stand comfortably. The crystals were obviously spent spellstones and while they would be nearly worthless in spellwork it was quite ingenious to use them to light up the small cavern.

“I followed bunny.” Al replied pointing to a pile of grass in one corner. The pile of grass was quaking and moving around as a large rabbit’s head popped out.

“That’s no rabbit!” the prince yelled from Al’s other pocket.

Mary-Ann squeaked as she noticed the horn growing out of the rabbit’s head. “My God!” she yelled, “It’s a Horny Rabbit!” Horny Rabbits might sound like something cute and cuddly but she knew they were no joke as more than one apprentice had been severely wounded or even killed buy them at the academy. The rabbits horn was an important spell component for several fundamental spells but removing the horn more often than not would kill the poor beast but even if it lived it would be a long time before it regrew so for some reason the rabbits tended to attack apprentices on sight.

The rabbit chose this moment to hop out of the pile of grass and growl. The rabbit had silver and black fur that covered its body in strange patterns.

“Oh crap…” Mary-Ann started.

“Hell Bunny!” The prince yelled cutting Mary-Ann off.

Mary-Ann tried to say something else but she could only stutter. If a Horny Rabbit was something to be wary of, then just imagine the effect a Hell Bunny would have. In comparison to a Hell Bunny, Horny Rabbits are nothing more than cute and cuddly little balls of fluff. In truth they are rather rare, and if they can be caught they are usually raised as guard animals as no sane being wants to tangle with them. If you could somehow manage to kill one of them the various parts of the bunny would make great spell components or crafting materials but that is easier said than done. Hell Rabbits are extremely territorial and hyper aggressive, nearly to the point of insanity. Given their nearly indestructible fur, affinity for darkness magic, and ability to shadow jump they are the very definition of hard to kill. People have tried to observe them so they can capture their kits only the mothers are even more sensitive and aggressive than normal Hell Rabbits so that rarely ends well. The few Hell Rabbits in captivity are owned by either the extremely rich or the extremely powerful, usually both.

As both Mary-Ann and the Prince watched in horror the Hell Bunny suddenly hopped forward and bowled Al over, holding him down with a paw on his chest. Mary-Ann wanted to scream but the prince beat her to it as the bunny bent over to bite Al’s face off. Unable to continue watching Mary-Ann pulled herself into Al’s pocked and cringed in preparation for Al’s horrifying death. A sudden burst of sound made her jump as she gathered what magic she could in her weakened state and prepared to help Al in any way she could only to flop back as she realized the burst of sound was giggles.

“Stop Mrs. Fluffy Tail! It tickles!” Al chocked out peals of laughter. Both Mary-Ann and the prince were shocked to discover Al wasn’t being eaten, instead the incredibly vicious Hell Bunny was licking him!

“My god!” the prince exclaimed. “It’s tasting him before it eats him!”

“No…” Mary-Ann disagreed. “It’s happy to see him.” As she listened she realized the rumbling wasn’t growling but a kind of purring. Suddenly the bunny stopped licking Al and to the horror of Mary-Ann and the prince it started sniffing his pockets.

“Wait.” Al stated as he pushed the bunny away which caused it to start actually growling. He ignored this as he sat up and pulled his pack off his back. Seeing this the bunny stopped growling and started twitching her nose.

Al grunted and pulled a humongous carrot out of his pack. “Here it is Mrs. Fluff…” before he could even finish the bunny had snapped its head forward and the carrot had gone missing from his hand. “Good. You like!” Al exclaimed as he watched the bunny happily munch on the oversized carrot. He smiled before digging into his pack again to pull out a bunch of normal sized carrots. The bunny stopped chewing long enough to sniff the carrots before letting out a strange grunt. Happy keening came from behind her as a bunch of fluffy little heads popped out of the pile of grass she came from. All of their noses twitched before they quickly jumped out of the nest and hopped over to Al. He tossed all but one of the carrots to the swarm of baby Hell bunnies before walking over to the nest.

Al leaned over and started running his hands through the nest making odd cooing noises. “Ah! There you be.” He said as he picked up a small metallic silver fluff ball. After gently brushing dried grass of the tiny rabbit he fed it the last carrot. The other baby Hell Bunnies were almost three times larger than this bunny and had both black and silver fur so this little bunny looked really strange. None of the little bunnies had grown their horns in so it was impossible to tell if it would even get a horn.

Having calmed down Mary-Ann was enamored with the tiny silver rabbit as it held the carrot that was bigger than it was between its paws and munched away with all its might. After watching it munch away for an indeterminate time she suddenly jumped as she recalled their present predicament.

“Al, we need to get that slave mark taken care of and restrict Phyron’s Journal so he can’t track it.” Mary-Ann pointed out after making cooing noises at the baby bunny.

“You right.” Al stated as he walked to a corner of the den while holding the tiny bunny. “Oh. This Floppy.” He said lifting the little bunny up higher.

“Floppy?” Mary-Ann was momentarily confused as to why anyone would name the mutant offspring of a Hell Bunny Floppy but then she remembered she was dealing with a goblin and things suddenly became clear. Even if Al was a genius by goblin standards that still put him pretty low on the overall scale of things, especially in regards to common sense.

“Mmm.” Al replied in a positive manner with a quick nod of his head. He sat down with his legs sprawled out in front of him and his back against the wall then placed Floppy on his lap with its carrot.

Mary-Ann mentally shook her head before she crawled out of his pocket and began to inspect the slave seal around Al’s neck. Normally the seal is invisible to the naked eye and would only appear if the slave traveled to far from their master, disobeyed a direct order, or attacked their master. Once it became visible it would slowly tighten eventually strangling the slave to death unless it was reset by their master or someone with a master key such as a slaver or one of king’s overseers, though they are more likely to watch the poor slave strangle to death rather than help.

Thankfully, slave seals can be removed by their owners and while Mary-Ann was only considered an authorized user of the seal she could at least access some of functions. Thankfully Phyron had not removed her access after she turned into a jelly or their chances of removing the slave seal would be near zero. Additionally, while the seal is usually invisible, her new senses allowed her to map out the seal through the mana flow within it even better than if it were visible. After having Al release a bit of mana she manipulated it to poke and prod at various parts of the seal while he played with Floppy.

After a long while she let out a frustrated sigh. “We can’t remove the seal.” She stated in a resigned voice.

“But… seal bad right?” Al asked.

“Yeah, the seal is a problem but don’t worry, while we can’t remove it we can break it.”

“Break seal? That’s good!” his voice went from dejected to enthused.

“Yes it is good.” Mary half corrected as she explained. “There are two problems with it though. The first is that we have to be extremely careful or the seal will detonate.”

“That sound bad.” Al stated as he raised one hand up to cover his neck.

“Yeah that would be bad, but I think the risk is actually pretty low as long as we are careful. That actually brings me to the second point. If we break it we won’t be able to break it all at once, it’ll be more like poking a small hole in a wineskin.” She explained.

“Huh?” Al scratched his head in confusion as he looked at her. “Don’t understand.”

“If we try to remove the seal all at once it will almost definitely explode, but if we break just a little piece of the spell code it will leak mana slowly and eventually it will completely dissipate.”

“Disapoop?” Al asked in an obviously confused manner.

“Dissipate.” She sighed. “It will slowly go away.”

“Oh, no go boom, just go away. That’s good.”

“That’s an oddly concise way to put it but yes that is essentially correct.” She stated before quickly continuing before he could butcher another word. “I have looked over the seal and I will need you to do exactly what I say, understand?”

Al swallowed what he was going to say before nodding in response. He was confused as to why he had to do certain things, like shaping his mana into a needle and stabbing himself with it, but he didn’t question her further. He knew that she needed him not just to escape but to find someone to change her back into a human so he was sure that she wouldn’t hurt him. At least she wouldn’t hurt him until she could be turned back.

As she guided him he could just barely feel when she moved his mana and didn’t fight it. When she first started to manipulate his mana he couldn’t tell but as she taught him more about spells he gradually began to sense when she was making a change. The first time he felt this he instinctively fought the change and the spark spell he was casting at the time blasted back into his face. After that he made sure not to fight her when he felt her making a change, instead he started to carefully observe what she was doing and was slowly learning. Unfortunately, whatever she was doing this time was so complex that he had no clue as to where to even begin trying to understand it. That and the fact that if they messed up the seal would explode, which he was sure wouldn’t be good for his health, made him more than a little nervous. Pushing that aside he did his best to follow her directions but he could still feel her constantly making changes and so as the time wore on his anxiety continued to grow. He was nearly ready to crawl out of his skin when, with a last burst of effort, she called out happily.

“Ha ha! Success!” she exclaimed. “I knew we could get it without blowing…”

Right at that moment the room violently jumped and white light flared up in a massive explosion.